ChicagoMaroon102816

OCTOBER 28, 2016

THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SINCE 1892

VOL. 128, ISSUE 9

Sigma Chi Expels Brother Accused of Sexual Misconduct

BY PETE GRIEVE NEWS EDITOR

A student accused of sexual misconduct last Friday night has been expelled from the UChicago chapter of the Sigma Chi fraternity.

According to the chapter’s executive board, the incident did not occur at the chapter residence.

“In response to recent allegations of sexual misconduct against a former member of our chapter, we severed ties with the individual, who will have no future affiliation or involvement with our chapter,” the chapter’s executive committee wrote in an e-mail to T HE M AROON. The chapter’s advisor, Samuel Smith, said that the chapter has initiated the disciplinary process with Sigma Chi’s international organization.

“As with all incidents of this nature, and in keeping with Sigma Chi International Fraternity’s protocols and procedures, that brother has been placed on interim suspension from the Sigma Chi International Fraternity pending an investigation,” Smith said in a statement Thursday night.

T HE M A ROON obtained an e-mail from the chapter’s executive committee to sorority presidents about the incident.

“In the past 48 hours, our executive committee became aware of unofficial allegations

of sexual misconduct against a member of our fraternity,” reads the Wednesday night e-mail. “In response, with the backing of our national headquarters, we made the decision to sever permanently all ties with the individual, who was informed [Wednesday] afternoon that his membership in Sigma Chi had been terminated.”

The executive committee said in an e-mail to T HE M AROON that the chapter did not host any social events that night. It added that the chapter “maintains the strictest of zero-tolerance policies regarding sexual misconduct.”

Chicago Police Department (CPD) News Affairs did not immediately respond to an inquiry for information about any reports of sexual assault in Hyde Park on the night of October 21. There are no reports of sexual assault on the UCPD Incident Report Archive from that night or the morning after.

On Saturday, October 22, a person reported that she had been scratched in the face by an acquaintance at an off-campus party at approximately 11 p.m. on Friday. The victim declined to file a CPD report, but the case was referred to Campus and Student Life.

Fraternity presidents who signed a recent agreement committing to a standard sexual assault policy called “Fraternities Committed to Safety” convened Thursday for a meeting.

NEWS EDITOR

The University of Chicago Police Department (UCPD) arrested a 28-year-old male unaffiliated with the University for trespassing Wednesday afternoon after he stood up on a table in Baker Dining Commons and protested for a communist revolution in the United States.

A University spokesperson said the deans on call had asked the group of protesters to leave Baker numerous times. The protesters

STUDENTS TO RECIEVE DIPLOMAS WITH HOUSEMATES

BY PETE GRIEVE NEWS EDITOR

The University announced major changes to its Closing Convocation programming in an e-mail to students Thursday morning.

In past years, President Robert Zimmer has handed out diplomas to all students at a ceremony on the quad. This year, there will be eight diploma ceremonies at different locations on campus.

Zimmer will “verbally confer the degrees” at an all-University ceremony in the morning.

Continued on page 3

NEWS STAFF

were members of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), U.S.A., a Maoist organization dedicated to “real revolution” in the United States. Chicago is the first stop on their “Get into the Revolution Organizing Tour.”

“Since they did not comply, UCPD was called and one person was arrested for trespassing,” spokesperson Marielle Sainvilus said.

Noche Diaz, the man who stood on the table, is facing misdemeanor charges, according to Chicago Police.

Continued on page 6

Continued on page 6

A Team Effort

The Cubs’ historic victory could have implications outside the realm of sports.

Page 8 The University of Chicago has a distinguished list of decampers.

Student Government President Eric Holmberg and College Council Chair Peggy Xu are collecting student feedback to give to the deans.

In a Facebook post, Holmberg and Xu say they “confirmed that no students were included in any part of the extensive planning process leading up to this decision.”

In an e-mail, University spokesperson Jeremy Manier said that students, parents, and other participants in past ceremonies have told the University that it

BY FENG YE

Page 11

Generation X ’: A Brief History of Dropouts and Transfer Students at the University of Chicago

“The ceremonies will be organized by Residence Hall and presided over by the Resident Masters at locations across campus,” Dean John “Jay” Ellison said in the announcement e-mail Thursday.

“We recognize that students have important connections to their College Housing communities and by organizing the College diploma ceremonies by Residence Hall, the ceremonies will be more intimate,” read the College’s FAQ page about the changes. Students will be able to request to graduate with a different residence hall.

Burglars Break in While Student Is Showering This Monday at around 2 p.m., three strangers broke into an apartment at 54th Street and Woodlawn Avenue while a fourthyear student was showering in the apartment.

At around 3 p.m., the burglars left the apartment, taking an iPhone, jeans, sunglasses, and the student’s debit cards.

When the student opened the bathroom door and made eye contact with the burglars, he immediately tried to lock the bathroom door and call 911. One burglar broke open the door and began attacking the student, the student told THE MAROON. “One person assaulted me by punching me in the face, neck and shoulders. He attempted to strike me with a stainless steel plumbing pipe,” the student said in an e-mail. The student said he was

Communist Protester Arrested After Standing on Table in Dining Hall

BY PETE GRIEVE

Courtesy of UChicago Division of the Humanities

In past years, Zimmer has handed out diplomas at a ceremony on the quad.

Facebook

The student tried to lock himself in his bathroom, but the burglars were able to break in the door.

Maroons Kick-off Last Three Conference Games

Contributing to the Maroon

Page 16

If you want to get involved in THE M AROON in any way, please email apply@chicagomaroon.com or visit chicagomaroon.com/apply.

On a five-game win streak, the No. 7 women’s soccer team looks to take down two UAA opponents.

Candy-Coated Casios: The Sweet Global-Pop of Kero Kero Bonito Page 13 On its second outing, Kero Kero Bonito’s Tokyo-by-way-of-London sound hits its stride.

Excerpts from articles and comments published in T he Chicago Maroon may be duplicated and redistributed in other media and non-commercial publications without the prior consent of The Chicago Maroon so long as the redistributed article is not altered from the original without the consent of the Editorial Team. Commercial republication of material in The Chicago Maroon is prohibited without the consent of the Editorial Team or, in the case of reader comments, the author.

All rights reserved. © The Chicago Maroon 2016

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THE CHICAGO MAROON - OCTOBER 28, 2016

New Brewpub in Harper Court

BY STEPHANIE PALAZZOLO MARO O N CO NTRI BUTOR

Jolly Pumpkin A rtisan A les will open its first brewery outside of Michigan in Hyde Park in early summer 2017.

It will be located in Harper Court, a University of Chicago development.

The brewery is known for its untraditional method of brewing beer, according to Tony Grant, chief executive officer of the brewery’s parent company, Northern United Brewing Co. Instead of letting beer filter in a stainless steel “brite” tank, the Jolly Pumpkin lets the beer age in oak barrels containing naturally occurring organisms. “ There are all sorts of different things those organ isms impa r t on the beer: different citrus tastes, spicy tastes, f lows, aromas, citrusy aromas, all sorts of really cool things that happen naturally,” Grant said. “And it just happens from sitting in the oak and aging, so it’s a very romantic, old-style way of brewing beer.”

A short walk from campus, the Jolly Pumpkin will be accessible for stu-

Obama Foundation Launches Diversity Council

dents and Hyde Park residents.

“There has long been community interest in having a pub-style restaurant at Harper Court,” James Hennessy, the University of Chicago associate vice president for commercial real estate operations, told the Tribune in a statement. “ The addition of Jolly Pumpkin will enhance Hyde Park’s growing reputation as a new dining destination in Chicago while introducing a brewery to the neighborhood.”

Grant plans to personalize the restaurant to Hyde Park, adding neighborhood-specific changes in the building’s design and special menu items. “[Our locations are] all eclectic, all individual, [and] not cookie-cutter by any means,” Grant said. “ We like to keep that quirky, weird feel alive. We’ll bring some local feel to the location, [and] it’ll definitely be Hyde Park’s Jolly Pumpkin.”

BY GREG ROS S NEWS STAFF

On October 11, the Obama Foundation announced the creation of an advisory board to promote diversity in the Obama Presidential Center’s future community engagement and programming initiatives.

The announcement of the Obama Foundation Inclusion Council comes as planning continues for the Presidential Center, which will be built on the western edge of Jackson Park. “ The Foundation is committed to maintaining an environment in which diversity and inclusion are valued and respected in all aspects of its operation, and the Inclusion Council will help us accomplish that goal,” Obama Foundation chair Martin Nesbitt said.

W h i le the Fou ndation sa id the council will “regularly communicate with the community,” it was not made clear exactly how the council aims to achieve its goals.

T h e P r e s i d e nt i a l C e nt e r h a s spa rked hopes among residents of neighboring communities for economic and educational boosts. A study com-

missioned by the University said the center will have a $220 million annual economic impact.

The council will consist of seventeen Chicagoans, most of whom are civic and corporate leaders. The University’s representative is Nadia Quarles, assistant vice president for business diversity. The only other member from a South Side institution is Perri Irmer, president of the DuSable Museum.

“It’s troubling that this inclusion council is made up of more corporate executives than neighborhood residents,” third-year R ob Hayes said.

Hayes is a member of the Prayer and Action Collective, an RSO working with local organizations for a community benefits agreement with the Obama Foundation. “ I f the Obama Foundation actually wants a diverse set of opinions about the future of the library, they should start listening to South Side residents.”

The Chicago Tribune has reported that the City of Chicago is creating a committee to promote ties between the center and surrounding communities.

The center is expected to be completed in 2021.

The University of Chicago 13th in World University Ranking

BY OLIVIA ROSENZWEIG ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

The University of Chicago ranked 13th in U.S. News and World Report’s 2017 Best Global Universities Rankings, a drop from 10th place in the 2016 rankings.

The report was released on Tuesday

and evaluated 1,000 universities from 65 different countries.

This year, Chicago fell directly behind Princeton University, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Washington.

Harvard and MIT topped the lists at number one and number two, respectively, in both 2016 and 2017. In both

years, the top ten universities were either American or British.

A different methodology is used to calculate U.S. News and World Report’s Best Global Universities Rankings than for its Best Colleges and Best Graduate Schools rankings, which only evaluate U.S. institutions. The focus for the calculation

of the Best Global Universities rankings are the institution’s research performance and prestige, while the Best Colleges report focuses on academic quality, including rates of retention and graduation of U.S. colleges. In the 2017 Best Colleges report, the University tied with Yale for third place.

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THE CHICAGO MAROON - OCTOBER 28, 2016

New IOP Series Aims to Examine Politics, Identity

BY TYRONE LOMAX MAROON CONTRIBUTOR

Starting next week, the University of Chicago Institute of Politics (IOP) will launch a bi-weekly discussion-based program called “Politics and Identity” (P&I).

The aim of these discussions will be to combine the realms of politics and social identity as one unanimous conversation, disregarding racial, gender, religious and LGBTQ+ barriers.

P&I will be completely student-led so that the diverse opinions within the student body can be equally heard. Students will be able to submit topics that will be discussed via polls open to the general student population. The discussions themselves will be moderated by six student facilitators, who received training late last year.

Keeping the intimate atmosphere amongst students is a key aspect, according to Anthony Downer, the chair of the Leaders of Color Initiative (LOC).

“We want students to be able to verbally validate their experiences and their identity, what they’ve gone through, their backgrounds, what they’ve gone through here at the university, because we think that’s so fundamentally important for us to share who we are with each other,” Downer said.

Both Downer and Morganne Ramsey, the politics and identity coordinator, agree that there currently isn’t an outlet at the University where students can engage in this manner. While there are many RSOs that focus on social identity or politics, P&I intends to embody both interests in one program.

Using the chosen topic as a guideline, the discussions will be open to all opinions. According to Downer, the goal is “to encourage all students to come together and just talk to each other.” The further understanding of the topical question itself, as well as the varying perspectives of participating students, is at the core of P&I. Originally, the idea of P&I was proposed to the IOP by a student who was affi liated with the Politics of Race and Ethnicity Initiative (PRE) at Harvard.

Through PRE, students participate in year-long cohorts, examining topics relevant to race, ethnicity, and politics. This structure closely resembles what the LOC cohorts organize; however, PRE is more broad in the subjects discussed. Due to the similarities, LOC was designated with overseeing P&I as a newfound club, encompassing the ideals of both entities involved.

Faculty and guest speakers will also be brought in once or twice a month, in partnership with the IOP and Office of Multicultural Student Affairs. The students’ opinions will be the aim of the discussions, rather than the lecture a specific guest might produce.

“We hope to foster a cohort-like experience, where we have a group of regulars.

But we also hope that people just submit the [topic] that they want to come to. A nd maybe they’ll only come to that one, but they got to talk about something they wanted to talk about. And I think as long as that happens, that’s all that matters for us,” Ramsey said.

Editor’s Note: Morganne Ramsey is a Head Copy Editor at T HE M AROON.

70 Years After University Fired Him, Biographer Brings Algren Back to Campus

BY CAMILLE KIRSCH MAROON CONTRIBUTOR

More than 70 years ago, Chicago novelist Nelson Algren was fired from his lecturing job at the University of Chicago—possibly because of an affair with a student. On Monday, Algren’s ideas finally returned to campus through an event for Mary Wisniewski’s new book, Algren: A Life.

Wisniewski began the event, which was held at 57th Street Books, by reading excerpts from her book and from Algren’s own works.

She went on to discuss Algren’s life and work as a literary champion of the Chicago underclass.

Algren grew up in a poor Polish neighborhood in Chicago. According to Wisniewski, his upbringing gave him sympathy for “factory workers and prostitutes and people around town,” who became the focus of his novels.

Algren is also noted for his association with many of the mid-20th century’s most famous intellectuals. Algren was romantically involved with Simone de Beauvoir, and his close friends included Richard Wright, Studs Terkel, and photographer Art Shay.

Algren began his writing career during the Great Depression. His first novel was based on his experiences picking fruit in the South, which was the only work he could find after graduating from college in 1931. The book was not a success, and after its publication Algren took a job at the Works Progress Administration.

There, Algren met Richard Wright, who introduced him both to Chicago’s literary and communist circles. In the subsequent years, Algren published several well-received novels, including his best known work, The Man with the Golden Arm.

He also became a steadfast follower of communism, which, according to Wisniewski, was the undoing of his career.

As America moved out of the Depression, the nation’s McCarthyist climate became increasingly hostile to communist writers.

In 1940, the FBI opened up a file on Algren.

“It’s huge! There’s over 400 pages,” Wisniewski said.

Wisniewski argued that anti-communist sentiment killed the market for Algren’s work and harmed the vitality of American post-war art. “We did a horrible thing to our artistic community,” she said. “We did a horrible thing to the American soul.”

Wisniewski linked this anti-communist sentiment to the negative critical reception of Algren’s second-to-last novel, A Walk on the Wild Side. According to Wisniewski, the bad reviews of his book crushed Algren.

“He had lost that inner urge that makes you an artist, that makes you go out and seek new things,” Wisniewski said.

After A Walk on the Wild Side, Algren effectively stopped writing fiction. Instead, he made a living penning travel pieces and book reviews for newspapers. His last novel, The Devil’s Stocking, was written primarily for money and was never published in the U.S. In 1981, Algren—who was twice-married and twice-divorced—died alone on his bathroom floor. At the time, all of his books were out of print.

A Chicago street and fountain are named in Algren’s memory, but his work is not taught in Chicago Public Schools. Wisniewski believes that should change. “He’s essential. We should be reading him in high schools,” she said.

Signed copies of Algren: A History are on sale at 57th Street Books.

Author Discusses Recently Repealed One-Child Policy

BY MELANIE WANG MAROON CONTRIBUTOR

A Pulitzer Prize–winning Malaysian-Chinese-American journalist delivered a lecture on China’s recently repealed one-child policy on campus Tuesday.

Mei Fong, a former Wall Street Journal staff reporter, spoke at the 57th Street Bookstore about her latest book, One Child: The Story of China’s Most Radical Experiment.

The discussion was moderated by Jonathan Eig, a correspondent for the The Wall Street Journal.

Fong began with an explanation of the radical one-child policy and how the stereotypes and thought patterns caused by the policy influenced her childhood in Malaysia.

Giving nod to her book title, she said that the policy, implemented in 1980, was the world’s most radical social experiment, with so little planning but such a broad impact. Though it was recently repealed in 2015, the impacts are still prominent all over China.

She likened the policy to a real-life version of something out of George Orwell’s 1984.

Fong spent extensive time covering China as

a Wall Street Journal reporter prior to and during the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, where she learned firsthand about the enormous impacts of the policy. In her encounters with local factory workers and rural families, Fong learned just how disturbing the effects of the policy were. Police enforced the law by demanding harsh fines (ranging from 2 to 10 times annual income), confiscating property, and terminating employment.

“Even within China, ideas of what happened are walled off from much of the population. I just try to tell who these people are, and how the population police [did] their jobs,” Fong said. Countless women were forced to have abortions, and the fines collected from lawbreakers became a source of revenue.

Fong discussed what she considers one of the biggest issues that resulted from the policy: The imbalanced family now has four grandparents and two parents that will all require the financial support of a single child.

Citing a statistic from another book, Fong said that a little known fact is that China’s population of seniors alone would be the world’s third largest population. “The little emperor becomes the little slave,” Fong said, regarding

the single child. This one child, who is often spoiled growing up, suddenly must support six people.

After her talk, Fong took questions concerning the policy and her book. She spoke briefly with an audience member about the issues surrounding Chinese women that come to the U.S. seeking asylum because of forced abortions they suffered under the one-child policy. Fong also brought to light some of the studies conducted that compare

the children born before and after 1980, and their differing character traits. “Although most studies were inconclusive, according to one study, the children born after the implementation of the policy in 1980 were less generous, more risk averse, and more pessimistic,” Fong said.

One Child: The Story of China’s Most Radical Experiment is currently available for purchase at 57th Street Books and Seminary Co-Op.

Zoe Kaiser

In Past Years, Zimmer Has Handed out Diplomas to All Students at a Ceremony on the Quad Continued from front

took too long to hand out diplomas.

Asked why the University settled on the house system to break up the diploma ceremony rather than majors or departments, Manier said “Holding ceremonies based on units or majors would have produced uneven results, with some relatively small groups and others that would be quite large.”

At the time of this article’s publication, a petition calling on Dean John Boyer, Ellison, and Zimmer to reverse its decision had

collected more than 600 likes.

“Most students do not remain in their House beyond second-year, and most students’ social circles encompass individuals from their House, RSOs, teams, classes, and Greek Life. Limiting the individuals with whom students can share this day is unnecessary,” it reads. “The College should reverse its decision and continue awarding diplomas to the Class as a whole.”

Manier confirmed that Resident Masters (RMs) will hand out diplomas. The Uni-

versity has not yet announced the locations of the eight ceremonies.

The University also announced the inaugural “Class Day” which will feature an invited guest speaker on the main quad. For more than 45 years, the University has invited faculty rather than public figures to address the graduating class.

Boyer and Ellison will make the final Class Day speaker selection.

Last spring, the University announced that the fall 2016 Baccalaureate ceremony

will be the last. Students who graduate at the end of subsequent fall, winter, or summer quarters will be invited to the next spring Convocation.

“While the Baccalaureate Ceremony has outgrown Rockefeller Chapel, traditional elements of the event will be integrated throughout the Class Day celebration,” Ellison’s email read.

At the end of Class Day, there will be a reception for students and families at the Museum of Science and Industry.

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THE CHICAGO MAROON - OCTOBER 28, 2016

Tuesday, 11/1

WHPK DJ–in To protest the recent changes to WHPK broadcasting policy, DJs will be spinning on the quad throughout the day. This informal event will feature music and refreshments.

Main Quad, 9 a.m.–9 p.m., free.

Reverend Addie Wyatt: Faith and the Fight for Labor, Gender & Racial Equality Marcia Walker-McWilliams, Ph.D., will be discussing her book, Reverend Addie Wyatt: Faith and the Fight for Labor, Gender, and Racial Equality. The biography centers around Wyatt, a civil rights activist, feminist, clergywoman and labor leader, and how she affected changed in 20th century America.

Woodson Library Auditorium, 9525 S. Halsted Street, 1 p.m., free.

On & Around Campus

The King of Pop and the Godfather of Soul Live Two talented pop artist impersonators will join together for a one-night only Michael Jackson and James Brown experience. This concert will feature classic songs from both artists, and is friendly for anyone to attend.

Performance Hall, Logan Center, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., general admission $35, student $28, RSVP online.

When Theft Becomes Grievance: The Violation of Land Rights as a Cause of Agrarian Reform Claims in Latin America Maria Paula Saffon will be discussing her work with comparative politics within Latin America. In particular, she will use this lecture to discuss how land rights contribute deeply to the political landscape of a country, and how they can be the backbone for revolution and reform.

Room 224, Social Science Research, noon–1:30 p.m., free.

Friday, 10/28

Workshop: Linguistic and Other Cultural Exchanges Across Brazilian History: The Indigenous Role This two-day conference will feature anthropologists, historians, linguists, and a host of other experts examining the history of cultural exchange between the indigenous people of Brazil and colonists. Lunch and light refreshments will be provided for those who register.

Franke Institute for the Humanities, 9:30 a.m.–5 p.m. on Friday, 9 a.m.–4 p.m. on Saturday, free, RSVP online.

What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been: Maureen Dowd and Carl Hulse on the 2016 Election Pulitzer-Prize winning New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd and fellow Times chief Washington correspondent Carl Hulse will be sitting down at the IOP at 12:15 p.m. to dissect the peculiarities of the 2016 election season and the consequences of its outcome. Dowd will be signing copies of her book, The Year of Voting Dangerously. This event is open to UChicago students; UCID is required.

Quadrangle Club Library, 12:15–1:15 p.m., free, RSVP online.

Property, Efficiency, and the State: The Neoliberal Critique of Bureaucracy, 1945–1970 Joel Isaac, a senior lecturer in the History of Modern Political Thought at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of the Christ’s College, will present his paper, “Property, Efficiency, and the State: The Neoliberal Critique of Bureaucracy, 1945-1970.” The paper examines state bureaucracies and experts in the neoliberal revolution of the post-war political economy.

Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society, 2–3 p.m., free, RSVP online.

Lily Hoang + Jackie Wang: Reading and discussion Authors Lily Hoang and Jackie Wang will be reading from Hoang’s novel A Bestiary and from Wang’s poetry, respectively. Then, professor Lauren Berlant will be discussing their selections. After that, the two authors will be leading a workshop entitled “Feeling Out of Space: Trauma Monsters and Magic.” Through collaborative exercises, they will examine the connections between the feelings of being lost and the concept of mythical monstrosities.

The Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, 4:30–6 p.m., free.

Hubbub in the Wine House: The Mutinous Voice in ‘Attar and ‘Eraqi Fatemah Keshavarz is the author of several books on Persian poetry, an activist for cultural education and a professor at the University of Maryland. She will be lecturing on a pair of Persian poets. Join her before the lecture from 1:30–3 p.m. for Tea and Sweets in Pick Lounge.

Room 146, Saieh Hall, 4:30–6 p.m., free.

On “A Book to Burn and a Book to Keep (Hidden)” Li Zhi was a radical philosopher in the late-Ming era of China. His writing examined Daoist, Confucian, and Buddhist principles, and was widely regarded as heretical within his time. Regardless, many of his contemporaries were still fascinated by the work, and his ideas heavily influenced the next generation of Chinese thinkers. This event will feature the translators who collected some of Zhi’s most influential work into the new anthology, A Book to Burn and a Book to Keep.

Seminary Co-Op, 6:30–8:30 p.m., free.

Boos n’ Ribs!

This Council on University Programming Halloween event will feature food, music, dancing, and a costume contest. The Dirt Red Brass Band, Ransom Notes, and Men in Drag will all be performing, and the UChicago Swing Dance Society will be offering swing lessons. The event, catered by Pork Chop, will include a variety of comfort foods: mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, and of course, ribs.

Ida Noyes Hall, 7–10 p.m., free.

Saturday, 10/29 Hashtag Lunchbag: Make and Give Out Food for the Homeless Every last Saturday of the month, the community will come together to prepare lunches and distribute the bags to the homeless. This month, the goal is to make, bag and distribute at least 1,000 lunches. All ages are invited to participate.

The Promontory, 5311 S. Lake Park, 10 a.m.–noon, $10, RSVP here.

Weekend of Workshops These theater workshops feature accomplished student directors who will be speaking about their work with various plays. The audience will be invited to participate and engage with the directors. The event will also feature a performance by UChicago Commedia.

Logan Center, FXK Theater, 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., free, RSVP online.

Mummies Night at the Oriental Institute The Oriental Institute is hosting a Halloween family party, entitled, “Mummy Night”. The party is mummy-themed, providing families the opportunity to participate in various mummy-related activities, such as a museum tours, craft stations, and story-time.

There will also be photo opportunities, face painting and a DJ. Oriental Institute Museum, 5–8 p.m., free, RSVP online.

What’s Next for Chicago Schools Chicago Public School teachers did not go on strike this month, but that doesn’t mean public education in Chicago is likely to turn uninteresting any time soon.

Timothy Knowles, the chairman of the University of Chicago’s Urban Education Institute, will consider likely future developments.

Institute of Politics, 12:15–1:15 p.m.

E.E. Just Lecture: Yasmin Hurd, Ph.D. Professor Yasmin Hurd of Mount Sinai College will be speaking about the neurobiology of addiction in developing brains. Her research has focused primarily on the effects marijuana can have on a teenage brain, and if regular smoking can cause a person be more prone to developing addictions later in life.

Room 1103, Knapp Center for Biological Discovery, noon–1:30 p.m., free.

The Urban Workshop Xavier Wrona, professor of architecture at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Saint-Etienne, and Sean Keller, professor at the ITT School of Architecture, will be discussing urban issues that affect the field of architecture.

Harper Memorial Library, Room 104, noon–1:20 p.m., free.

Reading the Black Library with Marcus Samuelsson: Red Rooster Cookbook Chef Marcus Samuelsson will be discussing his new book, The Red Rooster Cookbook: The Story of Food and Hustle in Harlem. This book draws from Samuelsson’s experience as the owner and head chef at the Red Rooster restaurant, and includes essays and interviews alongside award-winning recipes.

Currency Exchange Cafe, 305 E. Garfield Boulevard, 6–9 p.m., free.

Biosafety Training This IBC–approved course covers Biosafety Level 2 and Recombinant DNA, Bloodborne Pathogens for Biomedical Researchers, and Viral Vector Training.

Completing this course provides students with credit in CATTS for all three training modules. Open to students, faculty, hospital employees, and staff.

Room 617, Cummings Life Sciences Center, 1–4 p.m.

Halloween Fun at 57th Street Books Don a costume in the vein of your favorite literary character and head over to 57th Street Books for a night of scary stories in celebration of Halloween.

57th St. Books, 1301 E. 57th Street, 6–8 p.m.

Evolution of Samba in Brazilian Music Brazilian composer Sérgio Assad will discuss Samba, Brazil’s most widely recognized style music, along with his daughter, Clarice Assad, a Grammy-nominated composer.

Goodspeed Hall, Fulton Recital Hall, 4th floor, 4:30– 6:30 p.m., free.

Magic, Curses, and Spells! Halloween Concert The University Symphony Orchestra will be performing a spooky collection of songs, including selections from Sleeping Beauty, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and Harry Potter. Members of the orchestra will be wearing costumes, and the audience is also encouraged to dress up. The suggested donation for students is $5.

Mandel Hall, 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., free, donations encouraged.

Sunday, 10/30 South Shore Opera Company: “Harriet Tubman: When I Crossed That Line to Freedom” The South Shore Opera Company will host a twoact opera based on Harriet Tubman (played by Joelle Lamarre), one of the leaders of the Underground Railroad movement.

South Shore Cultural Center, 7059 S. South Shore Drive, reception 4–5p.m., opera 5–8 p.m., dinner and entertainment 7–9 p.m., opera & reception are $75.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame at Rockefeller Chapel Doc Films will be showing the 1923 silent fi lm adaption of The Hunchback of Notre Dame with live organ and carillon accompaniment.

Rockefeller Chapel, 7–8 p.m., $20 general admission, free for students and Doc Film members.

Monday, 10/31–Halloween!

Cuba–U.S. Relations: What’s in Store Wednesday, for the fi rst time in nearly a quarter century, the United States did not vote against the regularly revived United Nations resolution condemning its embargo of Cuba. It’s an exciting time in U.S.–Cuban relations, and Raúl Rodríguez Rodríguez, the Director of the Center for Hemispheric and United States studies at the University of Havana presumably has an interesting perspective on recent developments.

Institute of Politics, 12:15–1:15 p.m., students only, register online.

Grand Challenges in Phylogenomics Tandy Warnow is a computer scientist and the Founder Professor of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Warnow will examine the Tree of Life and discuss new methods of estimating species trees. Refreshments will be provided.

Room 133, Eckhardt, 4 p.m., free.

Workshop: Comparing Practices of Knowledge Postdoc Stuart McManus will be discussing the importance of public speeches in the rise of Iberia’s empire. From religious sermons to political orations, the importance of spoken word cannot be overstated when it comes to power relations throughout history.

Room 104B, Green Hall, 4:30–6 p.m., free.

Director’s Lecture: Anna Tsouhlarakis Join artist Anna Tsouhlarakis and members of the UChicago faculty to discuss Tsouhlarakis’s distinct art that examines what it means to be Native American.

Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society, 5701 S. Woodlawn Ave, 5–6 p.m.

Making the Most of Office Hours At this event, instructors for the Center for College Student Success will discuss how to approach professor office hours. Food will be provided.

Room 101, Stuart Hall, 6–7:30 p.m.

“The World Reimagined” with Mark Philip Bradley Professor Mark Philip Bradley will examine the intellectual history and language of human rights in the United States. Professor Haun Saussy will serve as the interlocutor. The event is co-sponsored by the Pozen Center for Human Rights.

Seminary Co-Op Bookstore, 5751 S. Woodlawn, 6–7:30 p.m., free.

Wednesday, 11/2 Black Hole Physics with the Event Horizon Telescope As one of this quarter’s Astronomy colloquia, Ferya Ozel of the University of Arizona will discuss how black holes gain mass.

Room 161, Eckhardt Research Center, 3:30 p.m., free.

Careers in Journalism: Chicago’s New Reporting Communities City Bureau, a non-profit organization that looks to foster and showcase community journalism, is just about a year old; it just launched its weekly public newsroom. Come to hear from its founders and representatives of its co-conspirators at the South Side Weekly and the Invisible Institute.

Room 802, Logan Center, 4–5 p.m., RSVP online.

Careers in Radio and New Media Ellen Mayer and Summer Fields work for the media company Hearken, which helps media organizations engage with their audience. Both also have backgrounds in podcasting.

Room 603, Logan Center, 5–6 p.m. RSVP online.

Careers in Publishing: Carving Your Own Path Learn about the publishing industry from the editorial director of America’s largest academic press, the founder of a small arts-related publishing house and the founder of a Chicago-based indie publisher.

Room 802, Logan Center, 5–6 p.m., RSVP online.

Racing the International: “Racing International Law”

Join professors James T. Gathii, Renisa Mawani, and Teemu Ruskola as they discuss how race is constructed by international law as a means of exclusion.

CSRPC, 5733 S. University Ave, 4:30–6 p.m., free.

Poetry Reading: David Lazar and Diane Raptosh David Lazar, the author of Who’s Afraid of Helen of Troy: An Essay on Love, and Diane Raptosh, the author of Human Directional, will read from their new books of poetry.

57th St. Books, 6–7:30 p.m.

L i fe L e s s on s : Vo t i n g + R i g ht s = Ju s tice This event in a series of community forums will focus on voting rights and the United States Supreme Court. Panelists include the president of the Cook County Bar Association, a professor at Northeast Illinois University, and the executive director of the non-profit Social Change.

Ames Auditorium, DuSable Museum, 740 E. 56th Place, 6–8:30 p.m.

How the Arab World Came Apart: The Groundbreaking New York Times’ Multimedia Project New York Times journalist Scott Anderson’s piece “Fractured Lands” considered the dissolution of the Middle East through heavily reported journalism, photography, and virtual reality. Anderson will join Jon Sawyer, the executive director of the Pulitzer Center, and Kerry Luft, the former foreign editor of the Chicago Tribune.

3rd Floor Theater, Ida Noyes Hall, 6:15–7:30 p.m.

RSVP online.

Sliced Bread Magazine Spring / Fall 2016 Launch Party Sliced Bread is celebrating the launch of their Spring/Fall 2016 issue with an open mic night.

Snacks will be provided.

McCormick Lounge, Reynolds Club, 6:30–8:30 p.m.

The Syro-Anatolian City-States: A Neglected Iron Age Culture James Osborne, an assistant director of Anatolian architecture at the Oriental Institute, will talk about the Syro-Anatolian culture in the Iron Ages, a culture that is generally overshadowed by the neighboring neo-Assyrians and Israelites when discussing history.

Oriental Institute, 7–9 p.m., free, RSVP online.

Thursday, 11/3 Transformation of Brazilian Citizenship History professor Celso Castilho will be discussing how the abolition of slavery in Brazil and the subsequent pro-slavery reaction had profound effects for the political atmosphere of the country for years afterward. He examines the event not only within the context of Brazil, but also the wider contexts of world history at that time.

Foster Hall, Room 103, noon–1:30 p.m., free, RSVP online.

Mesopotamian Land Tenure: A Look at the Chicago Stone and Other Kudurrus Kudurrus were used by the ancient Mesopotamians to record property rights. This 45-minute lecture will take guests through the history of kudurru usage from 3000 B.C. to 1000 B.C. Oriental Institute, 12:15–1 p.m., free.

Ann Cvetkovich: “Writing as Archival Practice” Ann Cvetkovich, professor of English and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, leads this event, which based on her own current projects. It will be a mixture of lecture, discussion, and group-writing workshop.

The Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, 4:30–6:30 p.m.

Film Screening: A War The Hyde Park Art Center, as part of their War Stories exhibition with show the Danish Film, A War. The artist Mary King, who selected the feature, will give an introduction to the fi lm and discuss its connections to her art.

Hyde Park Art Center, 5:30–7 p.m.

James Orbesen & Elizabeth Cooke: Coming of Age at the End of Nature James Orbesen and Elizabeth Cooke will discuss their contributions to the anthology Coming of Age at the End of Nature: A Generation Faces Living on a Changed Planet. The book features 22 essays concerning environmental damage and justice.

Seminary Co-Op Bookstore, 6–7:30 p.m.

Scott G. Bruce: The Penguin Book of the Undead Scott G. Bruce, director of the Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder will discuss his book The Penguin Book of the Undead: Fifteen Hundred Years of Supernatural Encounters.

Seminary Co-Op Bookstore, 6–7:30 p.m.

China, Art, History: New Orientations Keynote Event Professors from universities across the United States will be discussing the wide-ranging implications of Chinese art history. The event will cover not only the complex relationship between Chinese art and political history, but also how these thousands of years of culture will affect our future.

Performance Penthouse, Logan Center, 7–8 p.m., free.

5

THE CHICAGO MAROON - OCTOBER 28, 2016

Kerry Tracks Life Through East Berlin, Vietnam, and Syria

BY EMILY FEIGENBAUM ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

Secretary of State John Kerry discussed the importance of foreign engagement in Mandel Hall on Wednesday.

The discussion was moderated by Walter Isaacson, President of the Aspen Institute and former editor of Time. Outside of the auditorium, Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) members protested the event.

Kerry began by discussing his early exposure to the value of American investment in the future of foreign countries. While living as the child of a Foreign Service officer in West Berlin during the height of the Cold War, Kerry said he grew curious about the differences between the east and west.

One day, Kerry recalled, he used his diplomatic passport to visit East Berlin. Upon entering the Soviet sector, he said he sensed danger.

“I noticed it was dark, and foreboding, and very few cars, and people were dressed in much darker clothes and there were far fewer people walking around the street. I felt this ominous sense of danger,” Kerry said, adding that he was grounded by his father

when he returned home.

The Secretary said that the United States’ strong economy during the postWorld-War-II era enabled it to aid in the reconstruction of Germany, the rest of Europe, and Japan. Describing this period of foreign engagement as one of the greatest American foreign policy feats, Kerry claimed it helped establish a foundation for modern day democracies.

Citing the influence of technology, Kerry said that the world today is more interconnected than ever before. Kerry described this time as a “moment of profound transformation,” singling out artificial intelligence as the next frontier.

“The world today is a much more complicated world than the world my parents grew up in, the world that I grew up in, and we need to adjust to that, to recognize that. We need to move decisions faster. We need to be bolder. We need to be more engaged, not less engaged with the world, because, I’ll tell you, there’s no ‘over there’ anymore. Everyone’s connected. Anything that can happen that’s in a place you call ‘over there’ can happen in your backyard,” Kerry said.

Transitioning the conversation from

Brooke Nagler

Brooke Nagler

diplomacy to diplomacy backed by force, Isaacson asked whether President Barack Obama’s decision to not use force in Syria has been a mistake. In a tape leaked to CNN earlier this month, Kerry can be heard telling a group of Syrian civilians that he “lost the argument” within the administration about the use of force in the country. Kerry answered by describing the situation in Syria as “gigantically complicated,” and rejecting the notion that Obama backtracked on his word. The President turned to Congress for authorization of the use of military force against the Syrian government, Kerry said, but could not acquire a sufficient number of votes.

In response to a question about how his experience in the Vietnam War has influenced his career, the Secretary said leaders failed to comprehend that what was occurring in Vietnam was a civil war: a fight for unification, national identity, and ideology.

“Make sure that you’re not guilty of doing the same thing, falling into old patterns of thinking that put other generations in harm’s way,” Kerry said.

The discussion was subsequently opened up to students to ask the Secretary questions, with subjects ranging from the departure of American combat troops from Iraq to the ways in which climate change will be a challenge to his successor.

A student asked Kerry whether America would move toward restraint and retire its title as “the world’s policeman,” to which the Secretary responded that the U.S. has a critical role in making the world safer, not by “policing” but by engaging.

Kerry stated that he is wary of labeling intervention to stop human rights violations or to protect national security, as “policing” given that these matters are necessary for the advancement of American values. Kerry cited freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and the withdrawing of chemical weapons from Syria as examples of foreign engagement successes.

“We’re not exceptional because we sit around and beat our chests…we’re exceptional when we do exceptional things, which is usually,” Kerry said.

Survivor of Hiroshima Bombing Speaks at I-House

BY CYRUS PACHT MAROON CONTRIBUTOR

Takashi Teramoto, a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and a guide at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, spoke in the Coulter Lounge at I-House on Wednesday.

Born in 1934 half a mile northwest of the center of the bombing, Teramoto was in the fifth grade when the attack happened. At the time, Hiroshima was considered a possible target, so he had preemptively left his home city.

In mid-April of 1945, he had taken part in a district-wide evacuation to a mountain temple 35 miles away with the other neighborhood schoolchildren.

“My most vivid memory is the difficulty about food,” he said. “You finish eating, and you’re still hungry, and you ask for more, and you’re simply told there is no more.”

Then, during what Teramoto suspects was a parent visiting day on August 4, his mother came to take him to a doctor in the city for his frail condition. Homesick, he begged his mother to take him back to Hiroshima.

“That is a memory that keeps coming back to me,” he said, and that is why we were

back in Hiroshima at the time of the bomb.

Of course, I cannot help thinking that, if I hadn’t begged my mother to return that day, then she might still have lived on.”

His mother was in their house when the bomb struck on August 6.

“On that morning of the 6th, there was an air raid warning at 7:01 a.m., which was rescinded at 7:09,” he said. “I remember going outside to play with a couple of neighborhood friends. I think it was a little bit after 8 that my mother came outside and told me to come in, because we needed to get ready to go see the doctor.”

“So my mother went in the house she was in the entranceway getting ready and I went about four meters away to a desk in the back, leaning against it, and addressing a postcard to the temple I had left behind on Saturday. And I remember writing that address in pencil.”

“So there I was, bent over the desk, and I saw an extraordinary flash of light out of the corner of my eyes behind me. Didn’t know what it was. Everything went black. I knew that all kinds of things were falling on me I could tell they were falling on me and hitting me but all I can remember is that I crouched, and made myself smaller and smaller, as small as I could, and kept hoping

that this would be over soon.”

Teramoto said he remembers the smell more than any physical feeling.

“There was a very strange smell pervading in the air. And when these objects that were falling from above hit me, I remember the sensation of being hit, but I have no recollection of experiencing pain.”

“And then for a while, there was an indistinct light in the distance ahead of me. I stood up and walked towards that light, and left the house, and by then it was bright outside. Every structure was destroyed. There were mounds of rubble. And so I started walking over these mounds of rubble.”

On his walk, Teramoto saw a woman he

knew from his neighborhood, “Auntie,” who took him on her back westward to safety.

Within two weeks of finding safety, he learned that his mother had died. Auntie died two months later from acute radiation.

Teramoto was injured by shards of glass and sickened by the radiation, but considers himself quite lucky compared to those who suffered burns and had rag-like skin hanging from their appendages.

He has dedicated his life to teaching “future leaders,” like those at the University of Chicago, the importance of safeguarding peace. He finished his presentation with a quotation from Pope John Paul II: “The hope of Hiroshima is to abolish nuclear weapons and establish peace.”

CORRECTIONS An article titled “Students Torn Over How to Respond to Westboro Protest” misstated that the Westboro Baptist Church obtained a permit to protest at various locations “on campus.” They protested at various locations on sidewalks near campus buildings.

Alexandra Davis

Hiroshima bomb survivor Takashi Teramoto (left) shares his experiences at International House on October 26.

6

THE CHICAGO MAROON - OCTOBER 28, 2016

Letter Compiling Complaints Sent to Financial Aid

BY FENG YE NEWS STAFF

A letter compiling delays and difficulties with College Aid will be sent to the Dean of Students on Friday by second-year Trenton Crawford.

Some students’ financial aid packages have been delayed, decreased in amount, or simply not received at all so far this year. A statement published on College Aid’s website attributed delays to the departure of some staff and the time required to train staff to use a new payment system.

Over the summer, Crawford said he received several e-mails from the financial aid office saying that he needed to send in tax documents that he had already submitted. He said his financial aid package was delayed two weeks into the beginning of the school year. Crawford had to take out an emergency loan to cover his bills before he got his aid return, which he eventually drew from to pay off the emergency loan.

Crawford is writing the letter to the Dean of Students, and he will attach the complaints he has collected from students.

So far, Crawford has collected 71 students’

stories. Each student responded to five different questions in a form Crawford designed and disseminated over Facebook and e-mail.

“I asked the students to respond in a few sentences, but almost every single time they responded with a few paragraphs, because that’s how much they had to tell and how much this is affecting them,” Crawford said.

Crawford thinks that students who have had any problem with their financial aid packages both this year and last year should speak out. “Let the dean know, let

their advisor know, or fill up the form, because any way any change is going to come about is if we let the administration know that we are affected by this and that we’re going to take a stand against it,” Crawford said.

“It doesn’t just affect one person…it affects your psyche, it affects your emotional well-being, it affects the people around you because you can’t go to class and do your work without having this looming debt over your head…it just has made the beginning of this year so much more difficult than it ever had to be,” Crawford said.

“The fact that on a college campus, somebody can’t stand on a table in a cafeteria and shout out announcements…is outrageous.”

Continued from front

A video of the scene taken by second-year Emily Shen after Diaz got down from the table shows an altercation between the protesters, the UCPD, and a student wearing a red shirt. The student appears to push a protester, who is not Diaz. Shortly after, the UCPD led the protesters out of Baker.

Outside Baker, Diaz was handcuffed as protesters yelled, “He was leaving!” and, “Let him go!”

One of the protesters, Lucha Bright, said that an “irate person” wearing red tried to get Diaz off the table. “[He] lunged at [Diaz], grabbed [Diaz], and tried to pull [Diaz] off the table.”

Bright also told * The Maroon* that a female protester was hospitalized. Sainvilus’s comment did not mention a female sustaining injuries.

“The fact that on a college campus, somebody can’t stand on a table in a cafeteria and shout out announcements about what the hell is going on in the world […] is outrageous,” Bright said.

Bright said that the protesters did not have any trouble getting into Baker: “We marched in through the door.”

The student manual says that the University can deny public access to its property.

“From time to time, the University exercises its right to deny individuals access to all or some University property, normally after an individualized determination has been made that a person(s) has engaged in criminal activity, suspicious activity, or behavior that is or is likely to be threatening, violent or disruptive to University operations and activities.”

Earlier in the day, the RCP protested a John Kerry talk in Mandel Hall hosted by the Institute of Politics. At around 1:30 p.m., the protesters were seen handing out flyers in front of Regenstein Library.

Courtesy of Emily Shen At 6:30 p.m. tomorrow, the Platypus AfA video appears to show a student push a Revolutionary Communist Party protester. filiated Society, an RSO for the “practical reconstitution of a Marxian Left,” is sponsoring an event in the basement of Stuart Hall ti- “We often provide a platform for academics, to a request for comment about why only tled “America was Never Great! Overthrow– sectarians, independent intellectuals, and Diaz was arrested.

The RCP had a previous run-in with Don’t Vote For–This System!” with founding activists. We do not, however, take posimember Carl Dix. During their protests to- tions of support with respect to people or the UCPD on October 7, when protesters organizations that we interact with. Rath- stood on an American flag on the quad. day, RCP members promoted the event.

Joseph Estes, the Chicago City-Wide Co- er, Platypus maintains a critical position A University spokesperson said that the ordinator for the Platypus Affiliated Society, with respect to the Left,” Estes wrote in UCPD asked the protester to move so that he would not block the public way. said that members of the Platypus Affiliated an e-mail.

Diaz was released Wednesday evening.

Sainvilus did not immediately respond Society had not been involved in the protest.

“[I] Am Angry That I Missed a Day of Studying at the Reg,” Burglared Student Says Continued from front

left with minor bruises.

After taking the student’s phone and demanding that he get dressed, the burglars kept watch over the student for almost an hour, holding a pipe and a Taser, according to a Facebook post the student made on Tuesday. During this time, the burglars took turns trying to use the student’s cards at ATMs in Kimbark Plaza while the student was held in his apartment.

Failing to withdraw any cash, the burglars left with other items the student gave in an attempt to negotiate with them. The student reported the case to the Chicago

Police Department (CPD) immediately, and the police arrived within 10 minutes to collect evidence. The case is currently under investigation of Area Central detectives, according to CPD News Affairs.

The police believed that the suspects might have easily pried the kitchen door open, according to the student. Before the break-in, his lock did not work properly as it would not turn all the way. When he talked with Mac Properties representatives after the break-in, Mac replaced the locks.

“I felt and still feel shocked. I also felt conflicted, seeing that these young adults needed money for some reason, but they at-

tacked me and invaded my home. Weirdly afterwards, I feel calm and collected, but [I] am angry that I missed a day of studying at the Reg, to be honest. Ultimately, I hope these kids realize that it’s not too late to start anew,” the student wrote.

There has been a spike in the number of off-campus burglaries in the past few days.

On Tuesday between 1:50 p.m. and 2:05 p.m., a male 21-year-old victim was in his residence when two unknown men kicked open the door and demanded the victim’s property, according to CPD News Affairs.

Four other incidents of burglary or attempted burglary were reported to the University

of Chicago Police Department (UCPD) on Monday: two separate incidents occurring on Woodlawn Avenue between 55th Street and 56th Street, one incident occurring on Dorchester Avenue between 54th Street and 55th Street, and one incident occurring on Greenwood Avenue between 51st Street and 52nd Street.

On Tuesday another burglary was reported, on Greenwood Avenue between 53rd Street and 54th Street, according to the UCPD Daily Incident Reports Archive.

The burglars broke a window and stole a TV and a PlayStation. All reports are currently under the disposition of CPD.

Fraternities Sign Shared Policy on Sexual Assault

BY EUGENIA KO MAROON CONTRIBUTOR

The presidents of all active fraternities on campus drafted and signed the first fraternity-wide policy to set standards for prevention and response to sexual misconduct October 17. The policy is the culmination of work that began last spring.

The “Fraternities Committed to Safety” policy was written and signed by Alpha Delta Phi, Alpha Epsilon Pi, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Delta Upsilon, Phi Gamma Delta, Sigma Chi, Sigma Phi Epsilon, Zeta Psi, Psi Upsilon, and Lambda Phi Epsilon.

The policy, which is available online, says that any brother who is found guilty of sexual assault by the University, the Chicago Police Department, or the University of Chicago

Police Department must be immediately ex- efforts of organizations like Greek Life in pelled from the fraternity. Fraternities must Front from last spring, the policy is the first also suspend from participating in social that was jointly written by all the fraternievents any brother who is formally accused ties and publicly establishes baseline standards that all fraternities must meet. of sexual assault.

The website has a page that allows The policy also states that there will be meetings every fall quarter between frater- people to report perceived violations of the nities and representatives of the University’s agreement. Only fraternities that uphold the Resources for Sexual Violence Prevention or “spirit” of the policy will be able to re-sign the agreement each quarter based on majority Title IX department.

“Our goal is to come together to make a vote of the ten member presidents.

Though fraternities cannot prohibit positive change by using the resources we have to create a safer campus environment,” each other from hosting social events, in Psi U President Drew Armstrong said. “But the event that a fraternity is not allowed we acknowledge that this document alone to re-sign the agreement, Multicultural Greek Council President and Lambda won’t solve the problem of sexual violence.”

Although many of the standards in the President Michael Meng said the power of agreement are adopted from the policies of the policy lies in the message sent to the individual fraternities and reflect similar community.

“Our hope is that it is a signal to the community, whether we believe that organization is safe, is upholding the standards that we believe in, and so in that sense it is very powerful because it allows us to govern ourselves in a very mutual pressure for a better end,” Meng said.

Because the policy represents the minimum standards fraternities must follow, the fraternity presidents said they hope to go further in the future.

“I think that our fi rm, written, publicized commitment to safety, to transparency, to responsibility in our community is huge, it’s something that has never in my experience or in my knowledge has happened before, and that’s enormously powerful. And I also don’t think things will stop here,” Meng said.

THE CHICAGO MAROON - OCTOBER 28, 2016

7

It’s a binary KenKen! Puzzle by Daniel Ruttenberg

Fill the grid on the top with ones and zeroes such that each row and column has three 1s and three 0s, and such that each “cage” of the grid with dark outlines fulfills the mathematical operation. For instance, if a cage says -0, the two numbers when subtracted must equal 0 (e.g. (0,0) or (1,1), but not (1,0) because 1-0 = 1).

University of Chicago Symphony Orchestra with the Hyde Park School of Dance

Magic, Curses, and Spells The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, The Accursed Huntsman, plus excerpts from Sleeping Beauty and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Annual Halloween Concert Come in Costume!

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29 TWO SHOWS: 7 & 9 PM

Mandel Hall, 1131 East 57th Street, in Hyde Park FREE Admission | music.uchicago.edu |

@uchicagomusic

8

THE CHICAGO MAROON - OCTOBER 28, 2016

Generation X ’: A Brief History of Dropouts and Transfer Students at the University of Chicago The University of Chicago has a distinguished list of alums.

It also has a distinguished list of decampers.

BY HANNAH EDGAR When one receives a degree from the University of Chicago, they find themselves in esteemed company. Alums from the College have been game-changers in everything from music (Philip Glass, A.B. ’56) to journalism (Katharine Graham, A.B. ’38) and politics (Bernie Sanders, A.B. ’64).

However, many of the alums the University trumpets as its own technically left without a degree. There’s Ernest Lawrence (X ’29), a key physicist for the Manhattan Project and after whom the Lawrence National Labs in Berkeley and Livermore are named; writer Saul Bellow (X ’39), who, despite returning to the University of Chicago as a professor with the Committee on Social Thought, transferred to Northwestern as an undergrad; John Scopes (X ’31) of Scopes Monkey Trial fame; actors Ed Asner and Mike Nichols (X ’48 and X ’53 respectively); film critic Roger Ebert (X ’70)—the list goes on.

In fact, the University of Chicago alum I admire the most never received a degree. Andrew Patner (X ’81), a Chicago-based journalist, radio host, and critic, was a dedicated writer for THE M AROON, later becoming its editor-in-chief. While covering a 1979 protest against the University’s decision to give Vietnam War Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara a $50,000 peace prize, he was thrown in jail overnight alongside a handful of student protesters—an experience he wrote about for THE M AROON. Less than two years later, he dropped out from the College.

However, Patner never fully extricated himself from the University’s orbit.

Later in life, he was a devoted member of the Humanities Visiting Committees, advocated for the expansion of the arts on campus, and proudly claimed the University of Chicago as his alma mater for the rest of his life.

I was itching to ask Patner why, exactly, he left the College in the first place.

Was he disillusioned after his arrest? Did he feel alienated by the University, as some of his editorials for THE M AROON and Grey City seemed to imply? Unfortunately, I never got the chance to ask him—he died unexpectedly in February 2015, while we were planning a meet-up in Hyde Park.

Patner’s decision to leave, I’d assumed, had been something of an anomaly—and, in some ways, it was. But as the University’s history came to the fore the following year for its 125th anniversary, I was surprised to find that Patner was in good company: Throughout the greater part of the 20th century, the University produced far more dropouts than its peer institutions.

After all, the University had auspicious beginnings: within four years of its inception in 1892, Chicago’s enrollment exceeded Yale’s or Harvard’s. Had it continued to grow, it might have swelled to the size of a large, Midwestern private school, à la Northwestern and Notre Dame. As a former member of the Big Ten, the University would have had the football credentials to back it up, too.

As Dean of the College and historian John W. Boyer asserts in his book, The University of Chicago: A History, the College’s “profound crisis of enrollments” began after the University’s iconoclastic fifth president, Robert Maynard Hutchins, departed the University in 1951. Hutchins is credited with a number of institutional changes that became central to the University’s ethos, but which had earth-shattering effects on the long-term growth of the College. Adamant in his belief in the well-rounded student, Hutchins rejected grades, course requirements, and even majors during his tenure—tenets which became, to a lesser degree, the basis for the College’s rigorous Core Curriculum.

In 1939, Hutchins infamously used the momentum of a recent losing streak to justify cutting Chicago’s varsity football team. Hutchins was tough on Greek life, too, restricting participation in fraternities to those with an undergraduate degree.1 These blows to conventional bedrocks of American collegiate life birthed the University’s reputation as an intensely intellectual and somewhat impractical place. As one can imagine, a degree in general education wasn’t very popular with employers; a survey of about a thousand students who had attended the College between 1931 and 1935 revealed that 78 percent of them felt that their education had not helped them select a job or profession. Understandably, parents couldn’t see the merit in sending their children to a school that didn’t prepare students in that critical juncture, and high school teachers were turned off by Hutchins’s controversial Early Admissions program, which gave the best high schoolers in the nation the option to leave school early to study at the University of Chicago. It was tacitly understood by parents, teachers, and prospective students that a University of Chicago degree existed mostly to prime students for further education at a graduate or professional school, earning the University a well-deserved reputation as the “teacher of teachers”2 but scaring off untold applicants in the process.

Thus, while other universities experienced their most dramatic period of

expansion in the postwar period, undergraduate degrees from the University of Chicago became professionally devalued, and enrollment plummeted along with it, beginning a decades-long period of stymied growth and high attrition. Fewer than 1,350 students were enrolled in the College in autumn 1953; a 1956 Board of Trustees report concluded that while the University’s graduate schools were performing better than the average in terms of enrollment, “undergraduate enrollment … for reasons peculiar to this institution, declined more than at sister institutions.”

The report didn’t speculate as to what said reasons might be, but did go on, interestingly, to note that then-Chancellor Lawrence A. Kimpton was reviewing a proposal to grow the College so that the undergraduate population was roughly equal to graduate student enrollment, from 2,000 to 5,000 undergrads by the early ’60s. This was a surprisingly forward-thinking figure, given that there are 5,369 undergrads and 6,928 graduate students at the University today.

Meanwhile, of the first-years who ma-

“‘I got in, but I wasn’t really ready for it. I discovered this whole new microcosm of people that I’d never imagined outside of literature.’” triculated that year, in 1956, 51 percent would withdraw by spring 1960.

After Kimpton resigned in 1961, the dropout crisis and the struggle to reverse it was inherited by his successors. A 1963 report by the Registrar reveals telling statistics from the Class of 1962, 1963, 1964, and 1965 in terms of enrollment, degrees received, and attrition. The findings were alarming: as of January 1963, a whopping 45.5 percent of the Class of 1962 had gone “inactive,” meaning they were no longer enrolled and had received no degree. The amount of inactive students even outnumbered those who had graduated the previous spring (42.6 percent). Nor were things looking good for the other classes: the Class of 1963 was hovering at 37.3 percent inactive students just months before graduation.3 Now that officials had put a system in place to track and predict the numbers

of students dropping out, the logical next step was to determine exactly why students were leaving in droves. In 1963, an Assistant Dean of Students, James Newman, speculated about this in a confidential report to then-Chancellor George Beadle: “The student in the College of the University of Chicago lives in a very special kind of social milieu. Its openness, its diversity, its large horizons, its lack of group pressures toward conformity present the student with a challenge to be himself, to be tolerant of others, and to live comfortably in a free and open world.

Few adults would choose to live in a social milieu which offers as little emotional support to the individual as does the College.”

As it happens, the Class of 1963 would play a key role in the first and most comprehensive study of University of Chicago dropouts: “The Student and the College Community: A Study of Attrition and Persistence in a Highly Selective Liberal Arts College,” published in 1965 by Newman’s wife and fellow Assistant Dean of Students Mary Alice Newman.

Newman’s study approaches the dropout phenomenon from numerous demographic and academic angles. Some predictable takeaways are that those who were higher-achieving in high school and of typical college age (i.e. not early entrants) had correspondingly higher rates of persistence. Additionally, 89 percent of “persisters” already had experience living in an urban or suburban setting, and most came from well-educated, white-collar families.

On the other hand, the majority of dropouts reported a GPA below 2.0, and as many as 44 percent reported having been on academic probation at one time, as compared to 14 percent of persisters.

Indeed, academic achievement was a major problem reported among future dropouts while they were still enrolled in the College, with some 22 percent reporting dissatisfaction in this area.

Other issues occupying undergrads pertained to the atmosphere of the College (12 percent) and external circumstances (14 percent). However, surprisingly, the second-largest subset of dropouts reported no dissatisfaction whatsoever (21 percent).

After graduation, Newman caught up with 52 recent graduates and 60 dropouts, comparing the most statistically significant results of her findings. Many findings corroborated her preliminary data: Dropouts tended to have less conContinued on page 9

THE CHICAGO MAROON - OCTOBER 28, 2016

Continued from page 8 crete academic goals and more erratic study habits than their persisting peers and were less oriented towards a liberal arts education. However, Newman also found that about 62 percent of dropouts needed “advice, structure, and support” as compared to 33 percent of persisters, and that only 7 percent of dropouts had a “mature level of emotional independence” with adults, on whom they tended to be excessively dependent or resistant to.

Though Newman’s report determined that somewhere between 13 and 20 percent of dropouts probably would have struggled in any academic environment, she concluded that about half of the dropouts seemed to struggle at the University of Chicago in particular, “their interaction with the Chicago environment itself aggravating their specific problems.” On this topic, as Newman noted, the similarities between dropouts and persisters prove significant. Eighty-three percent of dropouts described Chicago as “diffuse, impersonal, and unsupportive,” and more than half (52 percent) of persisters confirmed this perception. Additionally, 92 percent of dropouts and 77 percent of persisters found faculty “unavailable or disinterested.”

Here, Newman’s findings seemed to corroborate her husband’s report from two years prior: somehow, the University of Chicago had come to be perceived as distant from the students it was supposed to serve. “The University is ‘they’ not ‘we’; and through some unholy alchemy it projects impersonality, anonymity, and bureaucracy… although the individuals who do its work are not impersonal, anonymous, or bureaucratic,” she concluded.

Newman’s findings were a major turning point in the University’s enrollment crisis. However, though they hinted at a diagnosis, they offered no easy solution, and the University would continue to struggle with uneven gains in enrollment and attrition.4 After nearly two decades of steadily increasing enrollment, reports by the Committee on Student Enrollment under Presidents Edward Levi and John T. Wilson reported a precipitous drop of enrollment in the College by about 1,000 students between 1969 and 19745 —a period that was also plagued by high attrition and political unrest. In the early 1970s, as many as one in five students left by the end of their first year, with untold numbers of dropouts of other ages.6 According to one source, the climate in the ’60s and ’70s was such that the University once referred to the graduating classes between 1964 and 1974 as the “lost classes.”

Like Newman, I reached out to departees from the College to hear directly from them about their experiences at the University of Chicago and see if the statistics and the University’s conceived reasons for the mass exodus matched up with students’ actual reasons, and if their perspectives had changed with the passage of time. Unlike Newman, I didn’t restrict myself to a particular class or classes, except in the most general terms: all the interviewees attended Chicago between the early ’60s and the early ’80s.

The experience of one X ’69 alumna— who preferred to remain anonymous— echoes many of Newman’s findings about the archetypal Chicago dropout some years before. She felt as though high school hadn’t thoroughly prepared her for the rigorous, independent thinking required by the College and was overwhelmed by the “hard edge” to life there.

“I didn’t feel like there was a lot of support for students,” she said. “I could have certainly benefitted from counseling, and I’m sure it was available, but there wasn’t much publicity of services for students. I just didn’t have the perception that the University as an entity was interested in anything except your intellectual life.”

In retrospect, the alum noted that some things might have been different had she not been going through a difficult time: her father died while she was in high school, and she admitted to falling in with “the wrong crowd” during her two years at the University.

“It was hard for me to separate my personal issues from the environment of the University,” she admitted. “If I hadn’t been depressed and lacking in confidence, I might have said, ‘Well, this University is unnecessarily hard-nosed about many things and lacks support for its students, so I’m going to find someplace else.’ I didn’t really do that.”

“In those days, I felt like I was on my own, pretty much,” agreed Gene Strohl (X ’60), a retired radio host and teacher who is now active in community theater around San Luis Obispo, CA. However, Strohl—who would have graduated with that much-beleaguered Class of 1963— wasn’t unhappy at the University, which he remembers as an “eye-opening” place.

“I became so distracted by what I was discovering and by daily life in the University that I kind of forgot there were traditional academic expectations, like attending class,” he remembered. “The dean called me in and said, ‘You’re not serious about your education, so take some time, and maybe come back.’ But I wasn’t surprised, and I think I felt, intuitively, that I needed a break at that point, anyway.”

Strohl never re-enrolled at the University, though he eventually moved back to the neighborhood with his wife, a black actress he’d met at a time when interracial marriage was still illegal in some parts of the U.S. Upon their return to the Hyde Park–Woodlawn area, both briefly worked part-time for the University.

While reaching out to alums, I specifically checked in with a number of persisters in Strohl’s class (no X ’63 alums are listed in the Alumni Directory) to discuss the dropout rate and the Newman report.

Almost all, including Strohl, expressed surprise that so many students in their

9 ly over-studious environment at Chicago, which was still being avidly discussed when he left in 1980.

“It’s not that the things that happened at the more socially-active Ivies or party schools didn’t happen at Chicago— they certainly did—but they were a subcontext to what you were doing academically and intellectually, and not having a lot of attention paid to them in and of themselves,” he recalled.

“What would spontaneously ignite in the houses were conversations. You’d be drifting down the hall, and a couple of guys would be talking about something, and suddenly there’d be six or eight people piling on the topic. There was no sense of any dullness or any unhappiness or anything else. I mean, we had a dozen people in the hall fighting about Plato or some such thing. … As far as I can tell, [the perceived social blandness] seemed to be more of a translation issue than a specifiable need.”

Surely enough, the factors most men-

University of Chicago Photographic Archive

Undated photo of students in the dining hall.

Originally from a “cloistered” all-white neighborhood on Chicago’s Near North Side, he spent his first year attending community theater and performances throughout the city. On campus, he stayed busy as well, starting a one-man newspaper to cover house council meetings and other goings-on in his residence hall, the New Dorm (later Woodward Court, which stood at the current location of the Booth School of Business).

But for a first-generation student who already felt academically underprepared by “mediocre” public schools, the stimulation from all sides could be overwhelming.

“I got in, but I wasn’t really ready for it. I discovered this whole new microcosm of people that I’d never imagined outside of literature, from dedicated beatniks to an aspiring Egyptologist to the son of a former Mississippi governor who was ready to come to blows when I refuted his [defense] of separate-but-equal laws. And I’d never met a black person until I went to U of C.” The environment proved as distracting as it was eye-opening, and at the end of the year, Strohl was placed on academic probation—or, as he jokingly put it, “reverse-invited” from the College.

class had left—very few were able to name someone who had left the University before graduating, despite the data showing that nearly two out of five students did so.

“The people we knew who [took a leave of absence] came back and finished up—I’m just surprised if 40 percent never got a degree,” Joan Merlin Palmer (A.B. ’63) said.

Palmer, an adjunct faculty member for the School of Social Service Administration and a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, assumed that more dropouts returned later on than Newman’s report or the 1966 data could project, since it was common to take more than four years to graduate.

“People just did different things. We had more commuter students in those days, and some were people who had to work for a while,” she said.

Alum Sid Huttner (A.B. ’63, A.M. ’69) also has a long and multifaceted perspective of campus: as a student, he was a resident assistant in Thompson House—then in Pierce Tower—before returning to the same building later that decade to serve as resident head of Henderson House. He finds it difficult to speak to the supposed-

tioned by respondents had nothing to do with the College’s social milieu, but changing social currents across the nation. Students left the University to hit the road, joining the burgeoning counterculture and civil rights movements. As one degree-receiving alum wrote in an e-mail, “I came from a conservative Catholic family and went around the campus with three inch heels, cashmere sweaters and a blond pony-tail at a time when most students were hippies with long black hair, sandals and protest signs.”

“Some people joined the Civil Rights Movement in Chicago or the South. The stuff in Vietnam was just barely beginning, too. There was a lot going on that drew people away,” Palmer remembered.

If this factor is one that goes completely unacknowledged in Newman’s report, it’s probably because it was published at a time that had neither the hindsight nor foresight to comprehend the power of the movement on already-poor attrition rates—nor could it fathom the ways political activism would continue to sour the already-fraught relationship between students and the administration.

In 1962, 1966, 1967, and 1969, stuContinued on page 10

10 Continued from page 9 dents organized sit-ins in the administration building—which would later be named Edward H. Levi Hall, after the Chancellor whose administration was the subject of the largest and most infamous of these in 1969. That year, hundreds of students occupied the administration building to protest the dismissal of associate sociology professor Marlene Dixon, a known leftist.

Former Student Government president Jeff Blum (X ’69) was among the 42 students expelled during the fallout from the sit-in. When Blum arrived on campus in 1964, he recalled being met by a vibrant activist community that was “offthe-wall” by 1969.

“The world went crazy from 1968 to ’69. It was an amazing, sharp-break kind of moment,” he said.

Even for nonpolitical students, the expulsions were traumatic. In the ensuing years, Blum spoke to many students who, regardless of whether they’d participated in the sit-ins, remembered the 1969 debacle as a “huge, shocking eye-opener.”

The anonymous X ’69 alumna, too, recognized the sit-in as a “watershed” moment, especially when her best friend— who had been part of the crowd civically sitting in on the administration steps— was expelled during the fallout.

“She was not a political firebrand at all, and she still got expelled,” she remembered. “As muddled as I was by my personal issues, I saw that this was also happening outside of me.”

The expulsions cost the University the trust of many of its students. Off campus, it incited a rash of bad publicity, which it spent years trying to live down. Edward Hasbrouck (X ’80), a student protester who was arrested alongside Andrew Patner at the McNamara protest of ’79, felt that the shadow cast from the 1969 sit-in compelled the University to handle that situation much differently, especially when the police got involved.

“The University really didn’t want a bunch of students to go to jail—it only further embarrassed them,” he recalled. “All indications were that the University put pressure on the city to drop the charges, and successfully so.”

Still, the young Hasbrouck was put off by the dissonance between the values the University supposedly upheld and the administration’s alienating political maneuvers.

“To me, as a political person, a community of scholars would imply something about participatory governance and self-governance. And yet, there wasn’t much of a role for students and faculty on the topic of university governance and how the University behaved. It made me feel like I was deluding myself by believing I was as much a part of the community as I was. It certainly made me feel alienated, which was a factor in leaving,” he said.

Nisan Chavkin (X ’81), executive director of the Constitutional Rights Foundation in Chicago, overlapped with Hasbrouck and Patner in the College. Though his departure was fueled less by disillusionment and more by his desire to study in Israel—he transferred to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem after his second year—Chavkin observed that Newman’s so-called “unholy alchemy” was still very much at work.

“The attitude of the University was very much, ‘Oh! You applied to the College—how interesting.’ I think we were a very large afterthought,” he said.

He also recounted what must rank among the University’s most bizarre and foreboding welcome speeches, delivered by former Dean of the College Jonathan Zittell Smith. “It was the old WWII fighter pilot speech: ‘Look to your left, look to your right, count 10 in each direction, and

THE CHICAGO MAROON - OCTOBER 28, 2016

at least one of you isn’t going to graduate.’”

Though dropout rates were no doubt higher than average at the University, what Newman’s study, reports from the period, and Smith’s speech all fail to acknowledge is that dropout rates were high across the board in higher-learning institutions in the ’60s and ’70s. Retrospective studies conducted in the early ’80s revealed that high dropout and transfer rates plagued many higher learning institutions during the past two decades, and a National Longitudinal Survey administered to the high school Class of 1972 revealed that nearly 60 percent of first-time entrants to a four-year college left the first school they attended before completing their degree.7 Though he was not writing specifically about the University of Chicago, higher education theorist and retention expert Vincent Tinto aptly described the College’s compounded troubles in “Dropping Out from College” (1985): “It is striking, though not surprising, that those institutions concerned with student welfare and with the quality of students’ social and intellectual development retain students and attract those students more likely to

“‘I never heard a word from the University for at least 20 years.

How do you know what prepared you for life if they don’t ask you later?’” be retained.” Yet, on the whole, “continuous enrollment to degree completion in one’s first institution is simply not as common as we are wont to believe.”8 Tinto offers three practical reasons for these general trends, all of which were reaffirmed by Grey City interviewees. First, tuition was less expensive—even adjusted for inflation—meaning there was less financial pressure to stay in school. Second, for those who never resumed their education anywhere, a college degree was less of a professional necessity. Such was the case with Hasbrouck, who now works as a freedom-of-travel policy analyst, travel writer, and advocate, among other things.

“It’s never been a problem for me that I didn’t have a degree,” Hasbrouck said. “People usually ask me where, not if I went to college, because they assume someone doing the kinds of things I do has a college degree.”

Additionally, in a pre-digital age, there were fewer resources to make an educated decision about which college to attend. A number of the degree-less alums interviewed recall forming hazy impressions of the University of Chicago from old college catalogs and a handful of recruiting pamphlets.

“It was partially lack of information,” the anonymous X ’69 alumna admitted. “I knew the University was top-notch, but I wasn’t as aware of the other possibilities.

I didn’t get any counseling about it at all, and my mom was clueless. I got recruiting brochures from some small colleges, but they didn’t interest me much. It looked like my choices were University of Illinois or U of C.” A College-specific phenomenon sometimes mentioned in tandem with its enrollment woes was its supposedly “offbeat” social milieu. In many ways, the pervasive stereotype of students at the College as quirky and academically masochistic was also indirectly attributable to Hutchins, who insisted that only

“self-selecting” students ought to apply to the College.

But, as Boyer points out in A History, this population couldn’t possibly reflect the majority of the undergraduate population. Why, after all, would students who so eagerly sought out the University enroll, then drop out in such large numbers?

The answer lay in the College’s unusually high admission rates for much of the twentieth century, and even its recent past (Case in point: between 1978 to 1985, the College had an average admission rate of 81 percent). In 1997, Michael Behnke, the vice president for College enrollment, stated plainly that the majority of applicants probably weren’t the “self-selecting” few that avidly wanted to come to Chicago; rather, many likely applied as a backup to more selective institutions.9 The fact that Chicago ranked last in application number and yield among its peer institutions during the same period lends credence to this assertion.

While that may be true for some, of the dropouts I spoke to, none reported a feeling of dissatisfaction with the social life at the University of Chicago, though all dropouts reported varying degrees of dissatisfaction with formal support systems and the administration. Like the University’s unofficial pedagogical motto, Chavkin believes that the perceived lack of social life may have had more basis in theory than practice.

“The ethos of the College was that you were supposed to be a socially malformed person—I was, for sure—but I don’t actually know whether we were or not,” he said.

Hasbrouck knew the social milieu might have been, by some accounts, atypical, but he remains adamant that it was one of the College’s greatest gifts. For example, the fact that traditional college rites like football games, homecoming dances, and frat parties were present, but not de rigueur was liberating.

“There was a lack of social monolithicness,” he said. “In a way, the social vacuum was a wonderful thing.”

When asked about the social climate, Palmer responded similarly. “Do students still stand around arguing about whether Thomas Aquinas’ proofs of the existence of God are meaningful? … Well, that was fun! It’s still fun! That kind of richness we knew we wouldn’t be finding other places.”

Today, the University seems to enjoy the best of both worlds: though it’s not above capitalizing on its “quirk” factor, it by and large provides the same amenities as any other university of its stature.

During a recent visit to campus, the anonymous X ’69 alumna marveled at the recent additions of the Logan Center for the Arts and Ratner Athletic Center.

“I thought to myself, ‘Man, if I’d had a really nice swimming pool like that, it would’ve made a big difference!” she chuckled.

Chavkin, whose daughters both applied to the College and got in, has been at turns intrigued and charmed by the University’s transformation.

“I think they’re finally the ugly duckling that turned into a swan after all these years,” Chavkin said. “It’s like that scene in Shrek 2, when Donkey is transformed into a horse, and he says, ‘We’re sexy!’ The University of Chicago is like, ‘Hey, we’re sexy now!’”

Kimpton would have agreed. The stats are everything he wanted in 1960 and more: low admission rates, high yield, a record-breaking numbers of applicants (30,188 for the 2016–17 school year), and 99 percent first-year retention rate.

Meanwhile, the attrition rate now hovers somewhere around 6 percent.10 Today, only 391 degree-less alums are listed in the University’s Alumni Di-

rectory—only a sliver of the thousands who have departed the College over the decades. Yet, the College seems to have remained comparatively aloof to that massive demographic who chose to leave.

As far as Hasbrouck is concerned, it’s a missed opportunity.

“What matters isn’t what people thought then, but what folks like me think 35 years after they left. I think that’s a real gap in the University’s self-assessment and own educational practice: that it doesn’t systematically, scientifically, and deliberately go back to [alumni] at various points in their lives, whether they graduated or didn’t, and ask them: ‘What was good?’” he said. “I never heard a word from the University for at least 20 years. How do you know what prepared you for life if they don’t ask you later?”

Reasons for the University’s indifference could range from the cynical (those without degrees obviously wouldn’t feel beholden to donating money to their alma mater) to the logistical (many dropouts remain difficult to track down). More likely, the indifference is mutual. Chavkin confessed that, on the whole, he has an “ambiguous” relationship with both of his alma maters.

“It’s not them, it’s me,” he quipped.

Another impediment might be a residual sense of shame on both sides: on the student’s part for leaving and on the University’s part for an embarrassing track record.

“I’m glad I went there, I’m glad I went there when I did, and I’m glad I left when I did,” Hasbrouck said. “Leaving without a degree shouldn’t be presumed to be good or bad, or something the University should judge itself for.”

I’m inclined to agree. In my hours of conversation with them, the “Generation X’ers” embodied the traits the University continues to celebrate—critical inquiry and a certain hyper-developed intellectual indefatigability. In the end, for so many, it was precisely those principles that coaxed them away from the Quadrangles.

Ironically, a Walt Whitman quote from Leaves of Grass adored by Hutchins—the man whose reforms arguably precipitated the dropout crisis—comes to mind: “Solitary, singing in the west, I strike up for a new world.” Hutchins once suggested that the highfalutin line replace Crescat scientia; vita excolatur as the University’s new motto. Decades later, during his tenure as Editor-in-Chief, Andrew Patner co-opted it for T HE M AROON, emblazoning the line on the cover page, just beneath the title of the paper.

Maybe the “lost” generations weren’t so much “lost” as they were idealists. It seems to me that the University of Chicago has always tended to attract a lot of those.

1 Hauck, Grace. “A Snapshot of UChicago Greek Life: Demographics, Growth, and Regulation,” Grey City. June 1, 2016.

2 SPRC. Report of the Advisory Committee on Student Enrollment. March 20, 1974.

3 1964: 36.9 percent; 1965: 37.6 percent; 1966: 35.7 percent 4 The 13 percent freshman dropout rate in 1983-84 was to be seen as an improvement, given that the rate was as high as 20 percent in the early 1970s. (Source: Boyer, The University of Chicago: A History) 5 Special Collections Research Center.

Committee on Student Enrollment reports.

March 1974 and 1976–77.

6 Boyer, A History.

7 Eckland, Bruce K. and Louise B. Henderson. “College Attainment Four Years After High School.”

8 Vincent Tinto. “Dropping Out and Other Forms of Withdrawal from College.” 1985.

9 Boyer, A History 10 CollegeFactual.

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THE CHICAGO MAROON - OCTOBER 28, 2016

VIEWPOINTS

DJ Turn It Up The University Should Allow WHPK to Continue Its Tradition of 24-hour Broadcasting Fifty years of broadcasting makes WHPK, the University of Chicago’s radio station, the second oldest RSO on campus. It is a University-owned, non-profit station that employs both student and nonstudent DJs and operates under the g uidance of the Center for Leadership and Involvement (CLI ). Last week, about 150 people took part in a phone campaign aimed at restoring 24-hour programming, which had been an integral part of the station’s identity until this September, when the University imposed policy changes and air time restrictions. This week, as the campaign continues, the administration ought to heed the voices on the other end of the line.

The past few months have been a time of great change for WHPK. During spring quarter, the University began requiring

all DJs unaffiliated with the University to undergo criminal background checks. After bed bugs were allegedly spotted in the studio in August, the University shut the station down to conduct inspections of every DJ ’s home. F inally allowed back on air in late September, the station found itself beholden to a new set of rules created by the CLI and a representative from the WHPK administration that many staffers felt had been “made behind doors, with little consideration of DJ input.” The most significant change is that WHPK will only be allowed to broadcast from Reynolds Club during normal building hours, instead of all day, every day. The station is also now required to keep more detailed logs regarding day-today operations.

The University technically owns WHPK, so it has the right

to impose policy changes and restrictions on programming. The question, though, is the extent to which it should. WHPK provides a unique service to the University and South Side communities, and its RSO status should not prevent it from operating or pushing boundaries as if it were completely independent. WHPK benefits from the University with studio space and a portion of its funding, but the University also benefits from WHPK. Not only is the station a platform for students interested in broadcasting, music, and media, but it also has a distinguished reputation on the South Side. WHPK is an alternative to mainstream, commercial radio that offers a diverse and eclectic music selection. It was the fi rst station to play hip-hop in Chicago in the mid-1980s—around the time 24/7 broadcasting began—and was also one of the fi rst stations

to play rap before it was a popular genre.

The University is interfering with this legacy by stripping WHPK of its signature 24hour programming and, more broadly, by tightening its grip on the station’s operations. The administration would be wise to recognize that giving student organizations like WHPK more operational leeway allows them the freedom to produce more interesting content and ultimately contribute to the community in a more robust way. While there are logical arguments for background checks and building hour restrictions, the way the University has gone about changing WHPK policy over the past few months encroaches on the station’s long-enjoyed autonomy and sets a potentially problematic precedent for similar student-run organizations that rely on the University for

funding but produce content independent from it.

In response to anger from student DJs, nonstudent DJs, community members, and students about the changes, the University has proposed “remote broadcasting” as a solution. This would allow DJs to maintain WHPK’s 24/7 broadcasting tradition by spinning from home, but it seems infeasible because it requires each individual DJ to have the requisite equipment, music, and technology to do so. Instead, out of respect for WHPK’s history, the University should answer the call for 24-hour programming and work toward creating an advisory board with both student and nonstudent DJs to negotiate future policy changes with the administration before they take effect.

—T HE M AROON Editorial Board

A Team Effort The Cubs’ Historic Victory Could Have Implications Outside the Realm of Sports

Jordan Karpin This past Saturday, for the first time in 71 years, the Chicago Cubs snagged a coveted spot in the World Series. Now, as someone whose sporting career declined incrementally after her shining

days as the sole girl on an all-boys baseball team, I would never have expected myself to report on such an event as the World Series. As I stood outside of Wrigley Field last Saturday, however, surrounded by

Maggie Loughran, Editor-in-Chief Forrest Sill, Editor-in-Chief Annie Cantara, Managing Editor The MAROON Editorial Board consists of the Editors-in-Chief and editors of THE MAROON.

NEWS

GREY CITY

Pete Grieve, editor Emily Kramer, editor Adam Thorp, editor Katie Akin, deputy editor Christine Schmidt, senior editor

Wendy Lee, editor Natalie Friedberg, senior editor

VIEWPOINTS

ONLINE

Euirim Choi, editor Vishal Talasani, director of data analysis PHOTO

Cole Martin, editor Sarah Zimmerman, editor

Zoe Kaiser, editor

ARTS

VIDEO

MJ Chen, editor Evangeline Reid, editor

Stacey Reimann, senior editor

SPORTS

Patrick Quinn, chief financial officer

Emmett Rosnebaum, editor Rhea Bhojwani, deputy editor Katie Anderson, senior editor Britta Nordstrom, senior editor DESIGN

BUSINESS

Jeanne Marie Fishkin, director of development Anjing Fu, director of marketing Sandra Lukac, director of marketing Ben Lanier, director of operations Audrey Mang, director of strategy

Kay Yang, head designer COPY

Regina Filomeno, business manager Harry Backlund, distributor

Sophie Downes, head editor Morganne Ramsey, head editor Erica Sun, head editor Katrina Lee, deputy editor Patrick Lou, deputy editor SOCIAL MEDIA

Jamie Ehrlich, editor Emily Harwell, senior editor

Editor-in-Chief E-mail: Editor@ChicagoMaroon.com Newsroom Phone: (773) 702-1403 Business Phone: (773) 702-9555 Fax: (773) 702-3032 For advertising inquiries, please contact Ads@ChicagoMaroon.com or (773) 702-9555.

Circulation: 5,500. © 2016 THE CHICAGO MAROON Ida Noyes Hall / 1212 East 59th Street / Chicago, IL 60637

hordes of celebratory fans, I witnessed the unquestionable power of sports and their role in unifying masses of people. This notion struck me, ultimately shifting my views on some of America’s pastimes.

In all honesty, I had never even planned on going to Wrigley Field last weekend. On his way out of our dorms, a friend knocked on my door and invited me along.

After internally weighing my oh-so-exciting options (stay in North Dorms and continue studying marginal analysis or go stand outside a baseball game to which I had no tickets), I decided upon the latter. Equipped with both my U-Pass and exceedingly low expectations, I joined a few housemates on an adventure to Wrigleyville.

As we approached the field, bright lights and spirited cheers filled the sky, and my T-ball-self grew slightly nostalgic. “This is historic!” my friends continually reminded me.

“Do you realize what might happen here?” They questioned with the subtle superstition that characterizes true baseball fans. The last time the Cubs played in the World Series, they informed me, World War II had just ended, poll taxes still existed, and Disneyland had yet to open. Perhaps this nearly century-long drought contributed to the passionate shouts and fervent crowds that filled Chicago’s streets. Or maybe something greater, something embedded in the very nature of sports, holds the potential to connect people in a much larger way than we realize.

Throughout history, sports have repeatedly proven quite consequential to stabiliz-

Sarah Komanapalli

ing groups of people. In 1995, Nelson Mandela arrived at the Rugby World Cup Final donning a Springbok jersey, the uniform of the very people that had imprisoned him for 27 years. Rugby, in the time of apartheid-torn South Africa, symbolized oppression and subjugation; the sport served as a constant reminder of European colonization. Nevertheless, Mandela knew that the black community’s approval would simultaneously validate the presence of Africans in the sport and create a commonality within the racially divided nation. The social and

political implications of Mandela’s support of rugby generated a sense of racial unity that exemplifies the transformative nature of sports on a national level.

Three years ago, in our own country, a usually joyous event fell victim to terror, challenging Americans to extract hope out of a wholly horrific situation. The 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, injuring 264 people and killing three, tested our nation. Out of the rubble, however, came Red Sox star David Ortiz. Ortiz famously (and explicitly) restored a sense of comContinued on page 12

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THE CHICAGO MAROON - OCTOBER 28, 2016

“Chicago, a city commonly associated with violence and crime, possesses an invaluable asset in the form of its sports teams.”

Continued from page 11 munity to his state by claiming that no person or group would “dictate [Boston’s] freedom” leaving a message that Americans must remember to stay strong and bond together.

Even the Olympics, as we witnessed this past summer, have the capability of softening disputes between countries. The concept of an “Olympic truce” dates all the way back to the ninth century B.C. and denotes that

all conflicts between nations must halt seven days before the Olympics and can only begin again seven days after the games, as a means of granting safety and fair play to athletes and their supporters.

Chicago, a city commonly associated with violence and crime, possesses an invaluable asset in the form of its sports teams. The charged atmosphere that so characterized Wrigleyville last week-

end could undoubtedly affect the entire city, bringing a newfound sense of hope to millions of people. Although the evident divide between the North and South sides of Chicago manifests itself in the ongoing Sox-Cubs rivalry, a sense of camaraderie could grow out of a mutual love of both baseball and Chicago itself. The city simply needs its own Mandela or Ortiz to remind seemingly disparate fans

of their obvious similarities. I even found myself, a Los Angeles native and an incognito Dodgers fan, assimilating naturally into the counterintuitive pro-Cubs mentality.

Perhaps this unbridled support of a team with a 71-year slump comes from the basic human desire to feel a part of something greater than oneself. We join clubs, participate in volunteer work, travel, and grow families while subconscious-

ly searching for belonging. Supporting a sports team, such as our very own Chicago Cubs, provides the same satisfaction, the same sense of self-actualization, as any of these activities. Regardless of how the Cubs perform in the Series, their tale illustrates the unifying power of sports.

Jordan Karpin is a first-year in the College

Letter: Obama Library Site Article Loses Track of the Facts Peter Draper’s Viewpoints article on the Obama presidential library (“Hope and Change, Interrupted,” 10/25), while admirable for its well-stated (and justified) concerns about the impact the library will have on its surroundings and the South Side in general, contains a concerning number of inaccuracies and omissions.

To begin, the author implies that it was Rahm Emanuel who came up with the Jackson Park site, because he “failed to find an appropriate” one. This was simply not the case: it was the University of Chicago that proposed both the Jackson Park and Washington Park sites, both on Parks District land, as part of its bid for the library. Rahm offered to fork over Parks District land if the Obama Foundation chose the University’s bid, and this motion was approved

by the City Council. But the author elides the University from this process altogether, dropping the blame, for some reason, on “Rahm and his friends (and Obama’s friends, and their allies in City Council).” Maybe he thinks Robert Zimmer and Derek Douglas have seats on the City Council.

The further implication that the Washington Park site was dismissed early on or never given due consideration is also extremely disingenuous. The author is right that the Jackson Park choice says something about the Obama Foundation’s priorities, but the University proposed both sites at the same time, meaning that, like all the other sites, the Obama Foundation considered the Washington Park site. Indeed, until the site announcement was made this summer, Washington Park was

considered the favorite.

On the subject of the Washington Park site, the author might wish to compare his claims with reality: he calls presidential libraries “a largely political and monetary enterprise” and voices concerns about the “gentrification” of the “Jackson Park community” (both perplexing choices of phrase, especially because the community’s name is Woodlawn). While property values are higher in Woodlawn than in Washington Park, both neighborhoods are mostly black and low-income, with high rates of home vacancy and large amounts of blight. To claim that Woodlawn has been “gentrified” is folly.

Moreover, the author apparently has not been on a walk through the Washington Park neighborhood in a while: in the last decade the University has bought dozens of

parcels of land in said neighborhood (he deplores the presidential library’s “land-grabbing”) and helped in the opening of an art gallery, a coffee shop, and a bookstore, as well as massive “Arts Block” development and renovation of the Garfield Green Line station.

To be clear, the author is inaccurate on at least five counts: in making a bizarre yin-and-yang distinction between “gentrified” Woodlawn and blighted Washington Park; in ignoring ongoing (nefarious, capital-driven) University development projects in Washington Park; in suggesting that the Washington Park site did not propose to use Parks District land, which it did; in suggesting that the “gentrification” the library will bring to Woodlawn would somehow magically not happen in Washington Park; and in sug-

gesting that community groups in Woodlawn either do not exist or do not want the library to be built in Jackson Park. Actually, there are probably more counts than five, but that should suffice for a start.

Mr. Draper is right to hold the Obama Foundation’s feet to the fire on the demolition of highly-utilized Jackson Park sports facilities. He is correct in saying that the presidential library in Woodlawn will not lift up the South Side in the way it claims to, but this argument is made in the most disingenuous and misleading way possible. There is no shortage of facts supporting the argument against a UChicago Obama library. Those making this argument should use them.

—Jake Bittle is a fourth-year in the College

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THE CHICAGO MAROON - OCTOBER 28, 2016

ARTS Candy-Coated Casios: The Sweet Global-Pop of Kero Kero Bonito

BY CHRISTOPHER GOOD MAROON CONTRIBUTOR

Caps, gowns, rotary telephones, and at least one plush flamingo: If Kero Kero Bonito’s Wednesday night show at Subterranean is anything to go by, this is a perfect recipe for collective effervescence.

For the uninitiated, Kero Kero Bonito—whose name refers to frogs and fish, or so I’m told—is the stage name of the band formed by producers Jamie Bulled and Gus Lobban and lyricist Sarah Midori Perry.

The group met through an online listing posted by Bulled and Lobban. In just three years, they’ve gone from being unknowns to being the mainstays of their own scene.

Like its hypermodern kin on Maltine Records and PC Music, the London-based trio doesn’t capture a place or a space so much as a feeling: They are giddy, glossy, and syrupy. Above all, they are fun: A KKB concert means sing-alongs, costume changes, and a menagerie of stuffed animals.

It’s for this reason that KKB is often patronized—in most reviews, the band is reduced to cuteness, kitsch, or camp. Now, that’s not to suggest that the group isn’t cute (they are incredibly cute). But anyone mistaking them for a novelty would be corrected after five minutes at Wednesday night’s concert.

The evening started with the band’s

eponymous anthem, a four-on-the-floor banger with a call-and-response chant, and proceeded through an unfailingly engaging set list. Adoring fans in freshly purchased KKB apparel sang along and danced and cheered. When Perry told her audience to “get down” or “bounce,” it wasn’t taken as a command but as encouragement.

On the group’s sophomore album, Bonito Generation, and its accompanying North American tour, it’s clearer than ever that KKB is defined not by naïveté but by sincerity. It’s a fine line, to be sure, but it’s one (of many) that the group walks with aplomb.

In an e-mail interview, Bulled, Lobban, and Perry talked with me about the songwriting process behind Bonito Generation.

“We definitely wanted to show the world what we could do this time around,” said the band, and it shows. Where Intro Bonito, the band’s first album, was bare bones and lofi (albeit charmingly so), Generation is both vibrant and immediate. In the parlance of The Beach Boys, these songs are pocket symphonies: fully-realized little worlds. “ We were i nspi red by ever yday life. You don’t have to look so hard that way,” the group noted.

And so, over the course of the album’s twelve tracks, there are songs about everything from selfies to parents to paintbrushes—as the cliché goes, the only constant is

From left to right: Sarah Midori Perry, Jamie Bulled, Gus Lobban.

change. Halfway through “Fish Bowl’s” runtime, there’s a lovely shoegaze breakdown.

“Waking Up” is peppered with a bouncy, punchy sample. And “Trampoline” takes a trick from the dad-rock playbook with a truck driver’s chord change on the last chorus.

Kero Kero Bonito in top form is Kero Kero Bonito without form: all rules are out the window on Generation, and the results are as beautiful as they are varied. But if there’s any continuity in the Kero Kero universe, it’s in the lyricism; there are some hard-to-miss motifs running through the band’s output.

Perry’s songwriting is both much funnier and much sharper than normally given credit for. On Intro Bonito there was “Sick Beat,” a bright rebuke of gender norms and “girly hobbies,” and “Babies (Are so Strange),” which featured a tongue-in-cheek refrain about the expectation to be a “child-producing machine.”

This wry sense of humor hasn’t gone anywhere on Generation. For every cheeky self-reference (“what’s that in the sky? / Could it be? It’s KKB!”), there’s some sur-

Courtesy of Jessica Hwang

prisingly astute commentary. On standout track “Graduation,” Perry asks: “What you wanna be? There’s so much you can do with a degree / Now I can apply for a Ph.D. / Get a nice job with a high salary.”

When I compared “Graduation” to a punk song, the band responded by saying they were “good with that interpretation! There could be more punk to come.”

Let’s hope so: it’s rare to see a band capable of penning songs like these.

At a time when electronic music is closer than ever to the mainstream, KKB is more defiant than ever: can you think of a single group more fearless with cowbells and Casio Chords?

As Perry sings on “Trampoline”: “Even if you’re falling, that’s OK / There’s a trampoline waiting for you / It’s so easy, you just have to believe.”

This is Kero Kero Bonito in a nutshell: if nothing else, they remind us to believe. I think they’re on to something with this— we’d all do well to trade the po-faced for the flamingo-pink every now and then.

Weekend of Workshops: These Plays Are Lit

BY NATAIE PASQUINELLI MAROON CONTRIBUTOR

University Theatre’s (UT) quarterly workshops are a point of departure for hopeful directors. They provide an opportunity to explore ideas and execution without the magnitude of a mainstage (feature-length) show. Still, the restrictions of a workshop—fewer resources, smaller budget, far less rehearsal time—present their own set of creative challenges.

This quarter’s workshops will take place this weekend in the intimate Francis X Kinahan (FXK) Theater, where UT will present Dusk Before Fireworks, directed by Sophie Downes as well as Selections from Dorian Gray, directed by Abigail Hunter. Both works are adaptations from literature, the former from a short story of the same name, the latter from

Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Downes’s adaptation of Dorothy Parker’s “Dusk Before Fireworks” tells the story of Kit and Hobie, who originally meet for a romantic evening together. As the night wears on, the rendezvous takes a tense turn as past conflicts fight their way to the foreground.

Hunter’s Selections from Dorian Grey follows the first 90 pages of Wilde’s famous novel. Character-driven, this adaptation follows the feelings and influences between Dorian Gray, a beautiful man in his twenties, Henry Wotton, a gentleman with an indulgent streak, and Basil Hallward, an artist.

Hunter and Downes faced a shared obstacle in adapting prose into scripts.

Hunter had to reshape the content of Wilde’s work to only include the scope of her story. “It took me a few weeks to cut the script, and a lot of information was eliminated that is actually really neces-

sary in the final product. It just wasn’t relevant to the story that I’m telling,” she said.

Downes, on the other hand, had little trouble adapting “Dusk Before Fireworks” for the stage. “I read a collection of Dorothy Parker’s short stories two summers ago and was struck by how theatrical some of them seemed,” she said. “This story in particular is so dialogue-heavy that it was simple to turn it into a script.”

Both texts are also significantly dated. “Dusk Before Fireworks” was published in 1935, and The Picture of Dorian Gray in 1890, but both directors saw something lasting in their stories.

Downes saw relatability in the characters of “Dusk Before Fireworks.” “My goal with this workshop,” she said, “is to speak to everyone who has ever felt insecure in a relationship, or like they weren’t being heard.

Parker’s characters are archetypes and the

setting is dated, but I think in this exaggerated scenario we can see our own experiences.”

For Hunter, Wilde’s story and her adaptation encourage thought about art and morality. “I hope [audience members] ask themselves about how they interact with and consume art, since art gets easier and easier to produce and to find every day,” she said. “What makes bad art or good art? Does my audience believe in moral art or immoral art, or just good and bad art?”

Take a short break this weekend and catch these creative projects, followed by an afterglow performance by the Commedia dell’Arte ensemble.

A Weekend of Workshops runs this Friday at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. in the FXK Theater located on the third floor of Reynolds Club.

Tickets are $6 online and $8 at the door.

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THE CHICAGO MAROON - OCTOBER 28, 2016

Visiting Edna to Find Beauty in Pain

BY NATALIE PASQUINELLI MAROON CONTRIBUTOR

A sick mother; an adult son dutifully home to tend to her—such is the archetypal plotline of Visiting Edna.

However, the show, currently playing at the Steppenwolf, is anything but typical. For one thing, it contains some peculiar staging elements.

Though the story only has two real characters, there are four actors in the room—the third personifying television, the fourth playing cancer.

Edna (Debra Monk) has been recently diagnosed with cancer and is adamant that she feels fine. Her son Andrew (Ian Barford) feels compelled to spend more quality time with his mother and is home for a visit. Set in the 1980s in Edna’s home in Iowa, the play follows the two characters as they try to breach the emphatic politeness of their relationship in order to connect.

Meanwhile, TV (Sally Murphy) and cancer (Tim Hopper) hover around mother and son like referees in a sports game, always in the room, always just out of the way. The result is effectively claustrophobic, reminding us there are always forces at work behind human interactions. Indeed, these two characters often converse with Andrew and Edna in order to sway their thoughts and actions.

TV constantly distracts Edna and Andrew from their hardships. It repeatedly calls out shows the characters might want to watch and creeps in during awkward conversations. Yet it also works to connect the pair, bringing back memories created in front of the television. Cancer is a predictably dark presence in the room; he encourages Edna and Andrew to face, and perhaps wallow in, their feelings.

The play begins with introductions. First on stage is Murphy, who tells the audience she will be playing TV, adding that she’s not sure why the playwright put in this role, or what exactly she is supposed to do with it.

These last remarks encompassed my feelings about the two personifications. While the idea is interesting—and certainly novel—their presence does not seem necessary to the unfolding of the play. Purely metaphorical, they do not grow throughout the play as “characters.” They serve more as a tool for the audience, helping to fill in the characters’ backgrounds and understand their feelings.

Still, Hopper’s performance is haunting. He is cold, calculating, and parasitic, but not purely evil; he, like Edna, just wants to survive.

The physical representation of this disease is unusual and slightly discomfiting, as cancer is always a public enemy, never a character.

Hopper’s theatrical but even tone evokes the presence of a psychiatrist, and the audience often laughed, not sure whether his words were sincere or ironic.

Murphy is bright and charismatic in her role (I overheard many a patron say she was their favorite character), embodying the sexy, energetic artificiality attributed to television in the 1980s.

Though these two characters were perhaps the most striking element of Visiting Edna, they were not the defining element. At intermission the man sitting behind me declared, “The set is irrelevant; you could have done the whole play without it.”

This, to me, was a representation of what I thought was missing from Visiting Edna.

The set, Edna’s home, has everything to do with her character. It is the space

Edna built, the rooms she decorated with her precious possessions, and a physical reflection of her personality. And yet I agreed with the man behind me— the set was irrelevant.

The characters in Visiting Edna were only types of people. They were excellent representations of an average mother and son. But what is special or unique about Andrew, Edna, and their relationship? Not much.

The issue is not that the play is quotidian; I believe there is immense richness in the mundane pieces of life. It is that Visiting Edna was not the everyday of real people with real particularities, but that of archetypes.

The language too was poetic, avoiding natural stumbling in favor of precise and often metaphorical articulation— be it of love, fear, or insecurity.

It seemed at times that even the actors leaned into this—there were moments when it seemed that they were not listening and responding honestly to each other but instead perfectly executing their roles as mother and son.

If the play sacrificed the personal, it was in pursuit of the universal. The characters’ struggles, particularly internal, were ones I recognized, and the production perfectly captured the pain of longing for a meaningful connection with a loved one. I was moved by Visiting Edna, and the inevitable ending of the story (I’m sure you’ve guessed it by now) hit no less hard because of my reservations. There were no unlikely twists or cheap revelations; the play showed life as it often is: beautiful and disappointing.

Visiting Edna runs through November 6 at the Steppenwolf Theater. Tickets are $15 for students.

Courtesy of Michael Brosilow

Edna’s son Andrew (Ian Barford) catches a moment with TV (Sally Murphy).

Lady Gaga’s Joanne is No Scam

BY JONATHAN HOGEBACK

On a Saturday night in October of 2009, Lady Gaga stood in front of one of her largest audiences at the time—12 million Americans, all tuned in to Satur-

born. Thus, Joanne is both a self-titled album and a memorial. To match the personal weight, Gaga moves away from pop to a blend of genres that comes together for a nice thematic cohesion.

The first two singles, “Perfect Illusion” and “Mil-

she does letting out the line, “Spice girl in this bitch!”

However, small bits of the old, showy Gaga show up from time to time. Her fascination with country music turns to lust on the song “John Wayne,” in which she yearns for a physical embod-

day Night Live. When the lights went up for her second set, she stood completely still on a small platform. Silver rings wrapped around her torso, and giant sunglasses obstructed her eyes and face. As the music began to play, the platform started to spin and the rings twisted around her body like a gyroscope, drawing attention away from everything but the flashiness of it all.

Two years later, returning to SNL for the 36th season finale, she was just as theatric—crawling from an egg to sing her anthemic “Born This Way”. Another two years after that, she took to the SNL stage again, lying bare on the ground as singer R. Kelly did push-ups over her body.

By that point, in the middle of the swing-and-miss of her third album ARTPOP, Lady Gaga’s audiences knew to expect the unexpected. Her theatrics were so commonly anticipated that they lost most of their appeal and any thematic thread.

When Lady Gaga performed on SNL for the fourth time in October of 2016, her audience—15 million this time—saw something new. No gaudy set-pieces, no elaborate costumes. The only glaring piece of theatrical flair was a bright pink cowboy hat—the symbol of her new album Joanne and her new MO: a more personal subtlety, at least compared to her previous work.

Joanne is Lady Gaga’s fourth studio album, and it positions itself as a deviation from the star’s norm.

Born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, Lady Gaga’s second name is in honor of a late aunt who died before the star was

lion Reasons,” sit at opposite ends of the spectrum.

“Perfect Illusion” begins with the steady and unfaltering whine of an electric guitar and devolves into a screaming, key-changing rock complaint about fake love. Thinned down and acoustic, “Million Reasons” is a country-esque cry from a struggling heart. Despite their differences in style, the songs fit together perfectly in message. Both songs, along with the rest of the album, disavow auto-tune and other vocal processors—a trait that heightens the album’s emotional viscerality, and a stark contrast to the overly-produced ARTPOP. Gaga’s authenticity, however, is never rawer than on the album’s title track.

“Joanne” has what initially sounds like very imperfect vocals—shaky and emotional throughout each verse— but these are juxtaposed with a soft, powerful chorus that only grows in intensity. Though Gaga never had the opportunity to meet her aunt, she translates so effortlessly her family’s pain and a more universal confusion over loved ones lost.

Most of her tracks about women, both generally and about specific, meaningful women in her life, have this natural ease. Her collaboration with Florence Welch of Florence + The Machine on “Hey Girl” has a groovy melt that echoes the sympathetic female empowerment it praises. “Grigio Girls,” a bonus track, tells of Gaga’s friend Sonja and how her friends dealt with Sonja’s recent cancer diagnosis. The care in her voice on these songs is almost startling, and she has, strangely, never felt more human than

iment of the country concept: “Every John is just the same/ I’m sick of their city games/ I need a real wild man/ I’m strung out on John Wayne.”

It’s odd if you know that John Wayne hardly represents this wildness and reality that these lyrics suggest she seeks. Just like Stefani Germanotta adopted the stage name Lady Gaga, Marion Morrison adopted the moniker John Wayne—a more palatable, commercialized name for his career and the eventual fame in highly fictionalized Westerns. The song, a rock-pop smash, is the most like Gaga’s older work—latching onto some name or concept and pushing its limits à la her Judas or Donatella—and the one that most resembles an act.

During her first live performance of songs from the album (for her Bud Light Dive Bar Tour) some of the only words unsung were whispered with a forced, deep drawl into the microphone, “My name is Lady Gaga…. But if you could do me this favor and tonight if you could just call me ‘Joanne.’” Putting on a thick, fake accent is a bit of a disservice to the album’s attempt at authenticity and is silly enough to make you cringe.

Similarly, adopting her late aunt’s name for the stage is kind of weird, even if just for the sake of one performance.

But this is Lady Gaga: the same artist who wore a meat dress to the MTV Video Music Awards. She’s wild—a mega-performer—and this album and the persona she’s adopted, in their small experiments with style, never forget that. Instead they build upon it, making her an artist who grows and who’s conscious of what she can be.

MAROON CONTRIBUTOR

Courtesy of Interscope Records

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THE CHICAGO MAROON - OCTOBER 28, 2016

South Siders Look to Snap Road Losing Streak FOOTBALL

BY OLA OBI SPORTS STAFF

The football team has had nothing but good fortune at home, racking up all three of their wins on Stagg Field. Un-

fortunately, the South Siders have yet to find success on the road, as they have taken four losses at the hands of their opponents while traveling. However, as the record has shown, the South Siders have alternated between wins and

University of Chicago Athletics Department

Third-year Chandler Carroll gazes up the field to find an opening.

“Volloween” Senior Weekend Set VOLLEYBALL

BY BRITTA NORDSTROM SENIOR SPORTS EDITOR

It seems as though this season could be characterized as a roller coaster for the Maroons, with flashes of brilliance marred by the occasional deflating loss.

After a weekend of UA A domination, in which the squad went 4– 0 to bring its overall UAA record to 7–0 and earn the No. 1 ranking heading into the UA A tournament, the South Siders fell to Wheaton College last Thursday, a team they could have conceivably obliterated.

First-year Madison Pearson said of the Wheaton match fallout, “We plan on rebounding by taking time off to regroup, refocus, and rejuvenate our mental fortitude. We plan on going in to practice this week with attitudes that are even more driven than before.”

Fortunately, the Maroons have a chance to rebound this weekend in a double-header, where they will take on Dominican and North Park, two unranked teams. If the squad plays the way it has against its conference foes, defeating the No. 6, No. 15, and No. 16 teams in the nation, they should be set.

Further, the South it have already proven themselves against Dominican this year. In an interesting choice of scheduling, the squad took on the Stars on September 10, demolishing them by a score of three games to none, with second-year Sarah Muisenga leading the way with 17 kills. “ Teams are constantly chang ing and improving,” Pearson said on the opportunity to play Dominican again.

“I’m excited to see how much we have changed as a team and it should be exciting to see how they have changed too.”

The second match-up of the night, North Park, is also not necessarily

a team to be taken lightly. Although their overall record is a paltry 7–18, the Vikings have fallen to several of the same opponents as the Maroons, dropping matches against Illinois Wesleyan, Wheaton, Aurora, and Elmhurst.

The squad also has the added motivation of the fact that it is Senior Night, in which Chicago will honor its four fourth-years: setter Erin Risk, outside hitter Amy Risk, middle blocker Katie LaPorte, and libero Mary Claire Tuohy.

Pea rson cou ld not rave enough about these fourth-years. “As a whole, they were so welcoming and such great resources for the first-years. Any questions that I had, I knew I could ask any of them,” she said. As far as volleyball goes, Pearson was again incredibly enthusiastic. “ When it comes to volleyball, they all play such an important role on the team! We would not be near the same team we are now if it weren’t for their hard work and dedication to the program,” she said. “ They are all wonderful role models and I know that they’ll all go on to do wonderful things once they graduate.

These four fourth-years have been th r ough a lot w ith th is M a r o ons program but have also led them to post-season bids every year since 2013, when they were first-years. Tuohy is also tied for the record of most digs in a single match with 42, and the team has never had a losing season or placed lower than fourth in the UA A standings at the end of the year.

The games begin at 6 p.m. when the squad squares off against Dominican and continues at 8 p.m. with a matchup against North Park. The double header set-up should also give the Maroons confidence: in five of their eight double-header days, they have won at least one of the matches.

losses and as they faced a tough defeat last weekend against Hendrix College in Conway, AK. This Saturday, October 29, could give the Maroons a shot to gain their first on-the-road victory of the season and maintain their current ranking.

Ranked at No. 5 in the conference, Chicago has the chance in their final three games to move up from their current rank, provided they receive some help in the form of losses by the top teams. With a lot of focus going into Saturday ’s game, the Maroons are expecting a great victory. Competing against rival Sewanee in Tennessee, it is another long trek below the Mason Dixon for the squad.

Although Sewanee is ranked No. 9, which is last in the SAA conference, and the Tigers are currently on a 16-game losing streak, the South Siders know that they cannot simply write off this competitor. Fourth-year captain Jackson Garrey said, “Every team in this conference is solid. Just as every game is winnable, every game can be lost if we don’t come out and play like we know how.” Classmate Davis Bitton echoed his sentiments. “We played well all week in practice and I feel strongly that we can go in there and get a win,” he said. “We have to make sure we play our game and stick to what we want to do.”

The Maroons also have a bit of history with Sewanee; although they have only played twice, the two games span 42 years. Interestingly enough, both matchups so far have been blow-outs.

The Tigers handed Chicago a 47–0 loss in 1973, while the Maroons retaliated just last year with a 31– 0 win.

Going forward, the Maroons are set to finish the rest of their season at home, which, based on the year so far, should give them a decided advantage.

On Saturday, November 5, the squad will take on non-conference competitor Carnegie Mellon from Pittsburgh, PA, and then the following weekend will close out conference play on Saturday, November 12, against big rival and current SA A leader Wash U. The squad is hopeful that they will be able to finish the season on a strong note, as the South Siders will be saying goodbye to 17 fourth-years in their final game on Stagg Field in just two short weeks.

“It’s definitely going to be bittersweet playing our last road game,” Bitton said. “But it’s going to be awesome to be able to finish out our college careers on the field where we have spent so much time. Not every class has the opportunity to say that.”

Kick-off is set for noon on Saturday and will take place at Harris Stadium in Sewanee, TN.

UAA Championship Race Looms for Chicago CROSS COUNTRY

ANDREW BEYTAGH SPORTS STAFF

This weekend, the men’s and women’s cross country teams will head south to Atlanta, GA, to compete in the UA A Cross Country Championships. The Championships bring together some of the nation’s top runners on the same course. Third-years Khia Kurtenbach and Peter Kreuch are looking to replicate their performances from last year when they each snagged top-ten finishes and were named All-UAA performers.

On the men’s side, the South Siders might have a tough time winning the championship, as Wash U has won for the past six years, and Carnegie Mellon University is ranked No. 10 in the polls.

Kreuch is confident in his squad and, in particular, its leadership from the upperclassmen. Kruech said, “The team is looking good. We’ve had some bumps in the road this season, but I’m confident that people will be healthy and ready to perform this week.”

Kreuch and the other upperclassmen seem to be finding their groove at the right time with fourth-year Timofey Karginov placing 15th last week at the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh Kollege Town Sports Invitational in a field that featured some of the top schools in the country. Kruech expects a big performance from Karginov, saying, “He’s one of our captains. He’s going to run exceptionally well and lead the squad from the front.”

On the women’s side, Chicago looks to bring the title back to the South Side for the first time since 2013. Wash U will be a formidable competitor, having

won the last two championships and being ranked No. 4 in all of DIII. Chicago does bring a bunch of experience for the championship. Leading the pack is Kurtenbach. Kurtenbach returns following one of the most decorated seasons in cross country history at UChicago. She breezed through the Oshkosh event last week and grabbed 11th place overall. The third-year revealed that the key to the team’s success thus far has been one word: consistency. “Our team has done a great job performing consistently throughout the season,” she said. “As our meets get progressively more competitive, especially going into conference, it’s important for us to just keep being consistent.”

Kurtenbach stays confident in her team’s ability and is excited about the opportunity to race such great competition at the UA A Championships. “If we all perform like we are capable of, I think we have a good chance to place well at conference. Wash U has a really deep team, but there’s definitely a chance we could beat them if we all have a great race. Most importantly, we want to build our team’s resume by performing well at conference to increase our chances of qualifying for the national meet.”

The All-American also humbly commented on her success and race strategy, saying, “I’m hoping to execute a smart race, try to be near the front of the pack, and see where that leaves me over the last 1,000 meters of the race.”

The men’s 8K race begins at 9:30 a.m. with the women’s 6K race following at 10:15 a.m. at McIntosh Reserve Park in Whitesburg, GA.

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THE CHICAGO MAROON - OCTOBER 28, 2016

SPORTS IN-QUOTES... “I don’t know if David Ross would make a good president but I bet he’d at least make people unwilling to say he’s being a bad one” —Jeff Sullivan on Twitter

Top 25 Battle on the Slate for Halloweekend MEN’S SOCCER

MINNIE HORVATH MAROON CONRIBUTER

This weekend the 15 – 0 men’s soccer team will head east to take on Case Western Reserve and Carnegie Mellon.

The No. 1 Maroons are looking to continue their fantastic season and extend their winning streak against the 5–7–3 Spartans and the 10 –2–2 No. 19 Tartans.

Chicago is coming off of last weekend’s 3–0 senior day victory against Aurora, in which it tied records for both wins and shutouts in a season. Two Maroons, third-year defender Stacey Reimann and fourth-year forward and captain Brenton Desai, were named UA A Athletes of the Week in the wake of this performance. The indomitable UChicago defense has only allowed five goals in 15 games, and it is complemented by an explosive offense that has scored 14 goals in just the last five games. Reimann attributes the Maroons’ success up and down the field to the depth they have at every position. “Across games, no matter the strength of the opponent, we are able to play several different players at a single position. Starters are getting enough rest, while substitutes are getting significant playing time. And as a result, we are healthier, stronger, and more prepared to outwork our opponent.”

The Maroons will look to exercise

this depth against Case Western Reserve on Friday. The Spartans have gone into overtime against their last three UA A opponents, resulting in a disappointing two ties and a loss. They are undoubtedly mentally and physically drained but are likely to come out looking for redemption. However, the Spartans’ inability to close out matches and find game-winning goals could prove deadly against a Maroons team that has shown its ability to take a lead and hold onto it, as well as its capacity to come back from a deficit.

A victory on Friday would put the Maroons in a position to clinch the UAA title in their penultimate regular-season game on Sunday. The Tartans have only one victory in UA A play despite dominating performances against regional opponents. Desai is excited about the opportunity that the weekend presents, saying that the team will be “very focused on continuing to play hard and keeping our level as high as it can be.

UA A games are always a battle so it’s going to be important that we are composed and humble!”

A lthough Chicago is undefeated and holds the top spot in the country, fourth-year captain DJ Weis also emphasizes the importance of taking nothing for granted. “Our team only ever takes one game at a time. The goal of our team is always to win the next game and improve ourselves in the process.

We have two opportunities this weekend to make ourselves better.” Going into the weekend, Weis and the rest of the Maroons are motivated by the belief that “if we come out aware of the game plan and our past mistakes and play our best then there’s no opposition

we can’t beat.”

The Maroons will face Case Western Reserve in Cleveland before travelling to Pittsburgh to face Carnegie Mellon.

Kick-offs are scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Friday and 12 p.m. on Sunday, respectively.

University of Chicago Athletics Department

Third-year Andre Abedian runs past chasing defender and moves the ball up the field.

Maroons Kick-off Last Three Conference Games WOMEN’S SOCCER

BY MAGGIE O’HARA MAROON CONTRIBUTER

The No. 6 South Siders return to UAA competition this weekend with a trip out east. The Maroons will take on Case Western Reserve University (6–5–4; 0–2–2 UAA) on Friday and No. 18 Carnegie Mellon University (9–4–1; 3–1 UAA) on Sunday.

The Maroons (14–1; 3–1 UAA) enter this weekend ranked fi rst in the region

and look to continue their dominance in the UAA. A sweep this weekend would leave the Maroons at the helm of the UAA standings with only one game to go at Wash U the next weekend.

The top position in the UAA currently features Chicago and Carnegie Mellon tied for first. Thus, Sunday is guaranteed to be a gloves-off fight, the winner taking over first place in the always competitive UAA conference. With only three games left in the regular season for the Maroons,

Fourth-year Sophia Kim taps the ball to herself as she gains possession.

this weekend represents an opportunity to solidify their postseason position.

The South Siders are the team to beat down the stretch, having absorbed only one loss this season. Fourth-year captain Lily Wolfenzon spoke to the weight of this weekend’s games. “We are tied for fi rst with Carnegie in UAAs and the target on our back is only getting bigger, so there’s no doubt that we will come out ready to play our hardest in every game,” she said.

The Maroons are eager to take a win

University of Chicago Athletics Department

from Carnegie. While Chicago leads the all-time series 12–7–5, the South Siders have only won two of the last 13 meetings. But the team knows it has to play its game and solidify a win Friday before it can focus in on the gravity of Sunday’s match. While Case doesn’t pose as much of a threat, it has played quality ball all season and is looking to take one from Chicago. The target on the Maroons’ back is huge and only growing with everyone looking to end their season with a big win.

Coming off a weekend of non-conference games, the squad is feeling ready to take on the last stretch of the season strong. It has been consistently improving as the season has progressed, everything clicking at the right time. The Maroons plan to stick to the style of play they’ve been playing all season, perhaps as to not mess with what has worked for them so far this year.

“We’re gearing up for the last three games of our conference play with Case and Carnegie this weekend and then Wash U the next week,” Wolfenzon said. “This past weekend we had two non-conference games that gave us a huge confidence boost going into this challenging double UAA weekend. This week at practice we are focusing on sticking to our same game plan of building up through the middle of the field quickly and pressing early on from the start of the game, no matter who we are playing.”

The Maroons lace up at Case Western Reserve 4 p.m. on Friday in Cleveland before traveling East to Pittsburgh to play against Carnegie Mellon at 9:30 a.m. on Sunday.